10 Years Later and No Steps Forward: A Review of the SC2 Campaign

So while I wasn't (this has now changed) a bit fan of RTSs online, I was a big fan of RTSs. This means I've played a lot of RTS campaign, and so when I started reading online and hearing from Aaron that the campaign for SC2 was really good, I in turn got quite excited. The following is both a review of the campaign in gameplay terms and the story, the spoilers coming in the second section, so feel free to read up to the spoiler warning if you haven't completed the campaign.

In terms of overall mechanics, I was actually fairly disappointed with the SC2 campaign. I kept hearing about branching paths and upgradeable mechanics, but I feel that other games I've played have had much bigger impacts, namely the Dawn of War series. For instance, the Dark Crusade expansion technically had an entire world to conquer in what manner and whatever race you so chose, which made it a much more tactical experience in the "branching" idea. Some places you would never even end up fighting, due to the other races killing each other off in that location. While the SC2 campaign does "branch," it's usually just a question of doing one mission before another with the only real difference being maybe unlocking one unit before another. This approach also causes huge problems with the story side, but that's for below. In terms of upgrades, some of them were really useful and  I enjoyed, and they made a difference (the science vessel comes to mind) but on the other hand many of them were pretty boring. For instance, the first protoss tech unlock was insipid, many of the purchasable unlocks were I thought useless for my play-style, and a lot of them seemed to make no noticeable difference in-game. On the other hand, Dawn of War 2's upgrade and equipment system probably did have the same amount of effect as the SC2 ones, but because sometimes they had a much more dramatic effect (like replacing a heavy bolter with a missile launcher) the upgrades felt a lot different, and like I was having an effect.

The campaign did do a good job of mission variety, I suppose, but a lot of times it boiled down to a) turtle and survive or b) build up big force and kill things/capture points. I realize all RTS games do this, and SC2 tried to be different with things like lava and walls of fire, but oftentimes for me they ended up feeling more annoying than challenging. Tactics rarely seemed to matter, and for the last few missions I could just mass an air fleet of science vessels, vikings, banshees, and battlecruisers and run through without difficulty. On the other hand, Company of Heroes had less "mission variety" in that almost all of them were "kill the enemy," but the set pieces were far more interesting, and the missions far more memorable (like a Panzer tank hunt or the raid through night airdrop). Tactics seemed to actually matter there, since you couldn't just mass tanks and storm through the enemy (they'd be busy building anti-tank cannons).

The achievement system I have previously mentioned, and will not be spoken of again.

I did appreciate things like mercenaries and all the clickables in between missions, but overall as a campaign I feel it fell far short of what other moderns RTSs have accomplished since SC1.

And now, spoiler alert!

Spoiler alert!

Spoiler alert!

In terms of the campaign story, I was also very disappointed. As others have brought up, the first problem is that although the campaign was "branching," the story and characterizations also branched, being Jim would go from being overjoyed one mission at the progress versus the Dominion and a depressed drunkard the next. It made Jim in my eyes rather unrealistic and thus unsympathetic as a main protagonist. In fact, none of the characters were personally that engaging. Hansen was annoying and I was happy when Jim killed her, other science guy was basically not there, Mr. Techdwarf was boring, and while both Tychus and Tosh had interesting lines, I honestly think they were rather forgettable for secondary characters (people like Augustus Cole or Gaz being far more interesting, personally speaking). Tychus' betrayal was foreshadowed to the point of being foreshining, and the disappointment that is "mission choices" is, well, disappointing. I never felt invested nor was I all that interested, and I only really kept playing just because a) I had bought the game b) friends had said it was good so I was encouraged to finish it and c) I had already put time in so I wasn't going to quit. But I thought the Zerg "twist" was silly, the Protoss portrayal boring (oh right, we had colossal *ahem* fighting machine great at killing swarms of units hiding in Aiur, but no, getting invaded by the Zerg wasn't cause enough to activate it) and then of course patently stupid moments like our hero's Battlecruiser hooking up to an enemy warship and being stored by two, count, 2, marines.

Wait, did they just jump over something in the boarding action? Oh right, it was a shark.

I thought the whole bring Kerrigan back from the Zerg was a boring but necessary turn, the introduction of Prince Junior rather forced and uninspiring (what a textbook royal son) and General Warfield was so so boring considering he's listed in the achievements as a "main character." Perhaps this is partly a reaction to finishing reading all the published Gaunt's Ghosts novel, where all of the character (all in war, obviously) are about a 1,000 times more interesting than anyone in this game. Comparing a game to a book series is obviously unfair, but to bring up a previously mentioned character, I was sad and in disbelief when Gaz was shot in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Jim Raynor could have been hacked to death by Dark Templar and I probably would have yawned.

Lots of other things probably bothered me over the campaign, but they are all pretty minor, but the point is that in combination with the above made it so I found the campaign rather inadequate in terms of the story.



Overall, as you can tell, while I technically enjoyed the campaign, the problems were a bit too abundant for me to be comfortable recommending it. Were I still in the state where I only really played campaigns, I would be rather irate at the moment, but luckily the multiplayer component makes up for the $60 price point. I look forward to seeing whether they change or improve things in the expansions for their campaigns, since while my review is less than stellar, there's definitely still potential there, and after all I enjoyed the original SC and WC3 campaigns when I played them. I think the problem is that SC2 is SC1 in many ways, including the datedness of the campaign. The RTS world has progressed far from 1998, and while an old-style multiplayer is still fun, an old-styled RTS campaign is just boring.

-HTMC

Edit: Thought I'd share this because, well, I enjoyed writing it.

How to Really Annoy Your Customers

Notice the top two possible achievements. Note that the objectives for the mission were destroy the artifact housing and a secondary achievement of rescue the 4 sets of Dark Templar prisoners.

Notice that I did all of these things, and even destroyed all 8 of the Rift fields. And yet I Blizzard somehow thinks I didn't do any of these things, despite the stats directly to the right stating the contrary.

I would almost be ok with this if it was an isolated thing, but I did a run through of the last 5-6 missions today, and I figured that although things weren't showing up they'd pop up later. Right?

Wrong. Apparently Battlenet has to be "on" for achievements to actually work. So despite me having a solid internet connection the entire time I was playing, because Blizzard can't maintain a decent server (I only found out it was acting up for everyone after finishing the campaign and browsing the forums, discovering hundreds of angry threads) I not only have not completed the campaign, but I haven't even gotten basic achievements for things like "finish the mission." But if you look at any of the logs, it shows me as having finished the campaign, except achievements wise. So my profile states I have not finished the campaign, but if I load the campaign I go straight to the mission select screen. Even something like "buy all the mercenaries," which I've done, apparently "hasn't happened."

This is incredibly incredibly dumb design, and I don't know what the hell Blizzard was thinking. Requiring internet to log in I can /almost/ understand, but making achievements only active when Battlenet is running? So so stupid. At least Xbox Live allows you to earn achievements while COMPLETELY offline, and then updates it next time you connect.

tl;dr, I am so frustrated.

-HTMC

Sinister Sacrilege: The End

(What, a post not about Starcraft? Heres-*BLAM*)

Last night was (sadly) the final session of the Dark Hereblam campaign, and so now that the plot is over I'm finally at liberty to discuss some overarching things I'd been trying the campaign. First though, a short synopsis.

• #4, played by Kory: A young, talented and most importantly brainwashed and intellectualy stunted assassin
• The Linear, played by Rome: A quiet, trigger-happy man from an out-of-touch space wreck where he was the law
• "Cantor" Remski, played by Jesse: A priest who spread his word through heavy raaawk and flames, and his passion through... flames.
• Callidon, played by Aaron: An optimistic psyker who didn't explode into Daemons, much to everyone's disappointment (especially my own)
• Daret, played by Max: A pragmatic techpriest hankerin' to be a cowboy nerfherder groxherder.

The story began on a Black Ship on its way to Terra (unbeknownst to the above) that suddenly suffered a massive failure, due to the 13th Black Crusade breaking out (again without the PCs knowing). In their investigation they eventually discovered that parts of the Guard unit stationed on board were in fact Genestealer cultists, and eliminated them and the Genestealers with extreme prejudice. After landing they were tasked with following up another section of the same tainted regiment that had landed days earlier, and eventually tracked down the group and avoided a large shoot-out in a saloon, but let the cultists escaped. They pursued, and found the cultists in a firefight with another group of cultists. The 'Stealer cult was finally killed off, and the PCs turned on the other cultists and killed many of them, but not before they finished summoning a Daemon. They managed through extreme cleverness to kill it off, and were sent home, but sent back the next day to continuing hunting down the heretic leaders, since reports of other daemon-summonings were occurring all across Terra. Despite failing abjectedly at investigative skills, they eventually determined found a safehouse of the heretics, which happened to be the main base at the moment. Despite an early attempt at subterfuge the infiltration again quickly turned into a run and gun fight, eventually culminating in an epic confrontation involving a number of heretics, 4 psykers, 4 arco-flagellents, and a heretic leader clad in power armor, as two warp circles seemed to be being summoned. Through a heroic sacrifice by #4 (and much to by chagrin), they managed to stop one of warp circles and kill all the heretics, preventing a flood of daemons from entering the Eternity Gate (the idea was that a single powerful summoning would be quickly noticed by the forces of Terra, but if dozens were occurring all over the planet they could only respond so quickly, so opening two in one location: one to the Warp, and the other (ideallly to the Golden Throne but Warp-magic is rarely so precise) to the Eternity Gate would cause massive massive problems). Fortunately for the Imperium "the Good Guys" managed to prevent this, and also dove heroically through the warp-portal after their fallen comrade, only to find him barely alive in front of the Eternity Gate, being stared at in shock by a number of Custodes and two Imperial Titans. Luckily they managed to avoid getting shot by a narrow margin, and forces arrived to apprehend them and take them away, and thus this chapter of their story ended.

I mean, in all likelihood they were all executed for extreme exposure to the Warp and Chaos, but hey, you never know. They were designed to be somewhere in between regular acolytes and a full inquisitor, and while the former would be executed, the latter definitely wouldn't. You decide ;-)

Anyway, the biggest thing I tried this time around was planning. For the "Inquisitor" campaign, I did a lot of pre-planning, had a cool story and arc planned out, etc. For this campaign, while researching Dark Heresy things online, I found a guide suggesting to not plan and just be spontaneous. I decided I would try it, for better or for worse.

Of course, it wasn't completely without planning. I had to have a little bit of an idea before each session, if only to make maps. But I was never planning ahead more than the immediate session. As stated, this session started aboard a ship. I like ships, because there is only a finite number of places to go and things to do, and I like genestealers, so that's what it was. It was a great way to get used to the system and try out the whole "be spontaneous" thing, so I let my PCs do whatever they wanted, and I think it was a success. We then got to Terra, and although I gave them a bit of direction, once they got to the first location they were all on their own, ending up with things like The Linear pointing a gun at an innocent guard's head to wake him up or the group deciding to rappel up a building to avoid spiders and try to snipe the driver of a tank. I think overall the last few sessions went the smoothest, since I had figured out what exactly did need to be planned and what didn't, and also was familiar with the system and what I needed to do/not do (like not show models on the board before they explored a room). I think we had some great moments that would not have occurred had I not planned ahead, and although I was slightly panicky at times wondering what I  was going to do this session, I always figured out something, and despite the complete lack of fore-planning I think the overarching story is remarkably coherent. This style meant I was able to deal with PC spontaneity well, since I was being spontaneous too.

Another facet of this style was hopefully unexpected by my players, and that had to do with a questionnaire I had them innoncently fill out early on. I held off using it for the first few sessions, but the entire time I had a list like this:

Ways to mess with PCs

-Make a saloon for Daret

Make Grox for him to catch

-Bring #4’s master back

-Bring Boris and Slant in for Callidon

Bring out Catachan Mega-Bees for Callidon

-Arcoflagellents for Remski

Noise Marines for Remski

Transport back to Bio Anthem for Linear

-For fun bring back Brutus, Slant, and/or Grant

The ones marked with a hyphen I actually accomplished, and had the session gone one further I had been contemplating something like the Warp Gate contaminating them but sending them to the Bio Anthem, where they'd have to search for a cure on the Linear's old home while fighting off things like (you guessed it) Catachan Mega-Bees. I think the coolest example of how this worked out well (well, a number of them were cool, but this was was also rail-breaking) was having #4's master reappear an Arco-flagellent. I felt given his master's crimes, such a punishment would have made sense, and since it's hard to perform I figured the likelihood of being sent to Mars to have it done was pretty high, and then to be shipped to Terra (and then stolen) not unfeasible. Remski also being terrified of them helped a lot. When I introduced the fact that one of the "scary guys" in the back was also #4's master, I didn't prompt Kory to do anything about it, I just let him know. He responded with an excellent piece of role-playing where he froze for a number of rounds (prompting much concern from his teammates) and apparently he ended up flipping a coin as to what #4 would do, and got the better result, that of charging his master (and ALL of the remaining combatants) and setting off 3 frag grenades on his person, killing everyone within an 8 meter radius (i.e. ALL of my enemy NPCs). He also disrupted both warp circles, but a well-played Drama Card meant he instead got flung through the portal to the Eternity Gate, which had coincidentally just finished being made. 

The irony was that besides the leader and the arcos (the former having been laughing the entire time) there was just one apiece of the heretics and psykers, and the next turn I actually would have unleashed the arcos, and the turn after that was when the Gates would have finished manifesting, and the Leader would have led a swarm of daemons into the Imperial Palace where an epic showdown between the Custodes, Titans, and swarms of Daemons would have taken place, with the PCs stuck in the middle of it all. But an excellent piece of role-playing prompted by my dickery stopped all that. I'm actually incredibly pleased with it, since despite losing a cool set-piece idea it was a really cool martyr moment that stopped a horrible horrible sacrilege from occurring. And I think now that my players read this they will also be happy they managed to stop that :-P

Finally, on the subject of drama cards, they were much more appreciated than I expected. At the end of one session I offered either one player a fate point (which are far more versatile and, I thought, more useful) or two players a drama card (which can be sometimes bad and always situational). I thought it would be a tough choice, but there was hardly any debate and they went straight for the two drama cards. I'm curious whether had I offered two of either which way they would have chosen. This may however just my players sharing my enjoyment of the drama cards'...well, drama.

Anyway, I know I have more to say about this campaign, but I've already written a lot, so I shall save the rest for another day. I enjoyed DMing the campaign a whole lot, and my players state they did as well, so I hope someday in the future we may once again embark on a quest to rid the world of evil and redeem all the bad guys ;-)

-HTMC

How to Stay Positive: Thoughts on Winning

To continue my undoubtably annoying trend of posting only on SC2 stuff (I'm sure it'll end sometimes...?) more thoughts on the game!

As I suspected, that bad night was simply that-- a bad night. I've played since then and although I can't say we've had a winning streak, we've been doing well (we is vague since it usually includes some combination of Rome, Aaron, and others). It's still definitely a learning process, but it's going well.

In particular I've been falling more and more in love with Dark Templars. I've pretty much nailed down an opening build that I've been using to great success for the last couple days, which basically gets me very quickly with full resources, an observer, 4 Gateways, 4 Zealots, a Warp Prism, and the ability to teleport 4 DTs instantly into the back of a base (after having the observer check it out). It's a great build because if they don't have any detectors (which happens often) it's devestating, and it also flows well into a mid-game/late-game strategy (since you have 4 Gateways and a Robo bay, and the ability to continue either with Robos or go Starport). For instance, one particularly good game happened tonight, which has my super amusing army value graph:

As you can see, for most of the game I had the 4 zealots and varying numbers of DTs. I successfully hit one base completely (with Rome's help) and proceeded to keep running around destroying things, with the Warp Prism following around to give reinforcements as needed. What causes the odd spike was because the DTs were working so well I didn't really need anything else, but I eventually realized just how many resources were piling up, and made 6 starports and began mass producing Void Rays and Carriers since I didn't need to counter anything in particular. Alas, although I had built up a fleet of about 100 supply, due to continued harassment from me, Rome and Aaron (including me destroying about 8 supply depots because everything else was guarded) they quit before the fleet was able to be used.

I am disappoint.

The Dark Templar strategy doesn't extend only to team games, too. I've been using it quite well in 1v1 matches. I keep setting up expecting an early rush to be countered with a DT hit, but the early rush keeps not coming, I keep getting the DTs in and winning the game, about 8-10 minutes in.

Surprisingly, this took a while. The first 1v1 game I played I got soundly beaten, and didn't play any for a long time. I finally got my nerve up and tried it, and since then I've won the last 4 1v1 games I've played (with the DT strat.) I suppose this is one of those lessons to not give up after an initial failure and blah blah blah. I'm am glad I've done it though, since I'm sure it's helping my skill set a lot (especially since I keep prepping for things that don't happen, like an early rush or the need to expand after the DT hit fails). It's also in a lot of ways easier than team games, since you can focus on a lot less (no coordination, no watching mulitiple bases early on, etc.). I'm almost looking forward to a game where I don't win handily so early on, although the wins are nice.

To keep up with my usual end of the post question, what builds do you all seem to be favoring/liking? I know I "see" most of them, but in general I don't know as well as I probably should. As I was half-joking with Rome earlier, despite playing so often with Aaron, I usually have no idea what he's up to, only that he's being inevitably effective.

To close, a non sequitar image. Basically while attacking my entire base got hit, and my entire base of production gets wiped, but I still had a lot of resources and income; but no buildings to produce units with. This is desperation.

-HTMC

I've Got a Good Feeling About This One: Thoughts on Losing

Although I am not the most competitive gamer you will ever meet (or competitive person in general, I guess) it would be very false to state I am not competitive at all. Especially if I'm playing against strangers, it's pretty much impossible for me to me to play for anything other than to win. This tends to manifest especially in video games, and as much as my battle reports recently might lead you to believe otherwise, I have on a few occasions lost.

Losing in itself is not usually a bad thing, since it encourages us to improve and play better next time. Especially in the games I tend to play, the turnaround time to the next game is quick, and even the ability to improve midgame is possible.

This, however, is not the case for RTSs, as I'm discovering. For instance, in an average game of an FPS you can be having a bad streak, and then make an excellent comeback. Likewise, one bad game might be followed by another great one. Finally, none of these games are likely to last long (especially something like Gears of War). With games such as SC2 though, games are likely to last at least 10 minutes (if not stretching to an hour, like one game Aaron and Rome had) and one mistake can mean the end of things.

These things can be made even worse in team games, which in my experience can last a lot longer on average. In addition, having one player drop can be devastating, as can likewise 1 really good player on an opposing team with two relatively ok or even bad players. For instance, in a game last night, here were the standings.

We actually lost this game, mostly because Rome dropped very early on (He had a barracks and a starport and that was about it due to Reaper raiding before he dropped). As you can see, I technically did best overall, but it still made no difference because we couldn't match their forces. I wiped out a base and a half towards the end of the game, but because I didn't have support it wasn't enough (likewise Aaron was still playing well, but taking the brunt of the attacks after Rome dropped, which is understandable). Unlike a game like an FPS where me playing like that might have won the game, in a team-based thing like SC2 the loss of Rome kind of killed most of our chances. I also think in 3v3 or 4v4 the drop is more problematic, since it becomes questionable who will take over. In 2v2 where I've lost Rome, I obviously knew I needed to take over both bases and did so, but because Rome dropped in this game and it was both Aaron and I (and we were unable to voice chat) we both, I think, figured the other would take care of Rome's stuff, so nothing ever happened there (it wasn't until the last few minutes where I realized Aaron could be making Vikings at Rome's Starport).

Anyway, that was one lost out of 5 for that night. Yes, we lost every game we played. It was rather demoralizing and painful (also reinforced how custom games kind of suck since you could be playing people of any skill level). Again, unlike other multiplayer games where many more game could have been played, those 5 games took a long time and oftentime it was just one single mistake that led to our downfalls, which can be very irritating. This obviously isn't going to stop me from playing SC2, but it's making me readjust my perspective on winning RTSs (especially since SC2 matchmaking is designed to give you a 50/50 win/loss ratio). In addition, I have to keep reminding myself that this is only my first week playing the game, I never even played SC1 online and I could be playing against people who have put many many more hours into both SC1 and SC2 than me (not to mention other online RTSs). But, last night was last night, and Aaron and I have a good feeling about this one.

In terms of other things I've noticed about SC2, here are some complaints that may or may not be echoed on the forums.

1. Surrender button. I was playing a game and the server lagged (?) right as I was hitting enter to type something to Rome, and it apparently it took the enter to mean I wanted to surrender (since the message goes something like "Server is lagging. Surrender?". A simple "are you sure" would have been incredibly appreciated.
2. The frickin' custom game set-up. As it stands, if you hit "Join game," it shows a bunch of maps listed by popularity. Note I didn't say "games," but rather maps. That's right, it'll show maps even though nobody's in a lobby for that. So you'll join an option and find yourself sitting in an empty lobby you just created, even though you clearly didn't want to create a game since yo hit join game. Incredibly frustrating, and it also means that nobody plans one or two maps (for instance, only Arkhan Asylum and the Bio Lab for 3v3). Very very very stupid.
3. The Zerg. They're pretty much universally acknowledged to have problems but haven't been fixed yet. This only bugs me because the player I almost always plays with (Aaron) plays Zerg. Sigh...
4. Terran detectors. Zerg have only 1 (maybe 2) and Protoss only have one, yet Terran have turrets, ravens, and the ability to scan an area whenever they want. That makes one of my favorite units, DTs, almost useless unless I get them early out AND the terran player has built neither a single missile turret or his advanced command center yet. Meanwhile Zerg are happy if they finally get detectors half way through the midgame... And while the Protoss Observer is awesome, it's also relatively late, and it's be nice if something else had the ability.
5. Similarly, either fix the Phoenixes or give us a unit that is actually made for anti-air. And give the Zerg one too. (now that I've been on the receiving end of Void Ray/Carrier spams...)
6. Finally, to end with, the whole cliff thing is weird. Protoss can't walk cliffs till T3 (or if you blink Stalkers which is still far from early game) and Zerg get it... never? Whereas Terrans have Reapers as T1 units. Which leads me to my next point...
7. "Practice" league games are interesting in theory, but the balancing of rocks means a) you can't scout, so you only choose a strategy and hope for the best until you get a flying unit up to scout, by which point it can be too late unless b) you're Terran, and you just make one reaper and you can suddenly do in the first few minutes what Zerg and Protoss can't, as well as harass very well while the other two races have to wait to have enough forces to break through two rock piles (one usually defended) or do mass air drops, which is impractical. Plus the lack of scouting makes things very unlike what normal games are like. If they had done anything, they should have just slowed down the game speed (not getting used to avoiding early-game rushes is also not a good habit to get into).

Again, I'm still having a lot of fun, but thought those things should be aired. Do you guys agree, disagree, or got something else that's bugging you?

-HTMC

Gaming and Metagaming: Thoughts on RTSs and SC2

As is apparent from the recent string of blog posts, I have recently been playing Starcraft 2 a lot, namely pretty much every night for the past week.

As stated in an earlier blog post, I'm fairly new to the competitive online RTS scene, and my strategy as such used to be non-existent. However, playing every night, and without other games to distract, means that I feel like I've been making huge leaps as an RTS player. I'm both microing and macroing decently well, I have an excellent grasp of Protoss units and am beginning to use them effectively (and get an idea of Zerg and Terran through playing against them, my APM is rising slowly and overall I'm more efficient. A huge part of this has been playing with good people I actually know (such as Aaron, Brandon, Rome), allowing me to learn without getting instantly crushed.

The most interesting thing, though was my style of play shifting. At first it was pretty amorphous, then I learned a good strategy that while a bit dairy-intensive worked wonders against the opponents we played (Void Rays + Carriers). This carried me through a couple days of gaming, and then two things happened. One, Aaron and I played a ranked 2v2 against another pair of Zerg/Protoss, and they literally did exactly what we did (Observer + Nydus worm to destroy the Protoss base) and it ended up being an incredibly close game. The second was playing against, rather than with, the previously mentioned friends (along with Jesse and Jasper).

Obviously they all know my general strategies very well, so I had to change lest I be hard countered. Thus, all those strategies I had read about and educated myself with but never used were finally put into play. I ended up doing things like fast teching to Dark Templars for an early hard harass, actually doing mass, unending Zealot/Stalker rushes, and even doing things like this:

The immature Colossi are guarded by their parents until they reach full size and trade their versatility for insane anti-ground lasers. 

This has turned out to be incredibly good for my gameplay, because before general strategies included:
-Void Rays and Carriers
-Void Rays
-Void Rays with more Carriers

And while effective, I knew it wouldn't last long. At this point, a week later, my repertoire now consists of:
- Early Zealot/Stalker rush
- Early DTs
- Stalker/Colossi (Robotech)
- Early Stalkers
- 4-Gate Teleport
- Early Zealot rush
- 4-gate with transports
- Turtle 4-gate
- And of course Void Rays/Carriers

What this means is now I have a lot more flexibility in game, combined with things that I'm learning how to early scout means I'm actually able to adjust on the fly rather than pick a strategy beforehand and hope it works. See a lot of spawning pools/barracks? Go robotech. See a lot of ground-only? Go air. See early invisible? Get an Observer ASAP.

Other skills I'm picking it is adding in appropriate units, like the occasional sentry against mass marines, observers with everything, transports on certain occasions, dark templars when no detectors, etc. And most importantly, hotkeys. Wow those are a lifesaver.

Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is playing against people who know you is incredibly different than playing against random opponents, and can super rewarding. I know Aaron was also changing up his tactics in response to playing with me, which makes me change more, etc. and etc. It's like a vicious cycle except it makes everyone involved a better player, and then when we play real random opponents we can crush them all the easier :-P

I welcome your thoughts on the matter! I think everyone who reads this is either currently playing or will soon be playing :-P

-HTMC

How You Know You've Lost All Respect

Today I saw Scott Pilgram Vs. The World. It was quite an excellent movie, and I enjoyed it a whole lot. I will likely even write a short review sometime in the near future. However, this post isn't about the movie, but rather about something that occurred during the trailers.

Trailers were going normal, some background chatter but that's to be expected. Then another trailer started, and within a few seconds it was obviously a thriller, with something attacking people in an elevator. The entire audience was quiet, trying to figure out what was going on. Tension was about as high as you'd expect from such a trailer.

Then, about 3/4 into the trailer, during a montage of "intense" moments (which were serving their purpose quite well) the screen suddenly flashes:

"From the mind of M. Night Shyamalan"

And suddenly about a quarter of the audience goes "Oooooh," then a beat, then about half the audience burst out laughing, completely ruining the tone of not only the rest of the preview, but pretty much ruining all the potential interest that had built up prior to that point. It seems the Last Airbender really was his final straw. I almost feel bad for the man.

I hope I myself never fall that far.

-HTMC

Starcraft 2: A Children's Story, Part 3: Of Tactics Large and Small

Three races, three men, one team. Rome, Aaron and I banded together for an epic night of Starcraft 2-ing, and although 2 of the more memorable games were when Rome dropped, I now present to you the second of 3 parables designed to inspire young minds to greatness. And by that I mean there's going to be lots of pictures.


After Aaron left us for the night, Rome and I decided to try a ranked 2v2 match. All seemed well and good, except Rome dropped 2:21 minutes in. Still hearing Aaron's voice in my head to believe in him that believes in him, and because I wanted to try out the early Void Ray rush strategy, I decided to try and play anyway, controlling both Rome and my own units, despite knowing nothing about the Terran tech tree. Rome's advice? Just spam Marines.

Rome drops and we all offer our condolences.

What to do, what to do... well, those barracks there looks good. All unspent crystal goes into Marines and Supply Depots to feed them.

Meanwhile, all my base has been doing period is harvesting Vespene like a madman and maxing out two Starports to build Void Rays. I get about 6, then decide to launch the offensive

The surprise Rays catch the bottom player completely off guard (Blaykakudori) and I proceed to wipe out his entire base.

Meanwhile, his small Reaper force sits there, unsure of what to do and impotent against air units. This will be important later.

While I'm busy annihilating his companion, top player wisely starts mass producing missile turrets, which at the time I can't see.

I find the small force, my Ray explodes the one Marauder and the rest of the Reapers take flight and fleeeeeee.

A couple reinforcement Rays arrive, and I attack the upper base to find a line of towers. Nooooo. Some of my rays go down.

However, enough survive to get fully charged, and then the missile turrets cease to be a problem.

Pew pew.

Meanwhile, the Reapers arrive and find a lonely supply depot they decide to attack. I don't think they can see any farther.

"Oh man, killing these supply depots is easy. Oh hey, wait, what's that in the distance?"

"OH EMPEROR WHERE DID THEY ALL COME FROM" And thus ends the saga of the Reapers.

Having stripped the defenses, the Void Rays (reinforced for the 3rd time) wreck their trademark havoc on the base.

Good end!

So despite my lack of faith in myself, all I had to do was believe in me who believes in Aaron who believes in himself. I can't say I two managed two bases super well, but it did end up working. I'm also proud to say my APM shot from about the usual low 30s up about 44, which while still a far cry from Aaron's average of like 80, is a noticable improvement. I've also since this game become a large, large fan of the "Cheese" Rays and Carrier combo and have used it to large effect in a number of games. I feel like in general in a two player match having one teammate go lots of tier 1 and the other mass tier 2/3 units can be good as long as you don't get rushed by both enemies. In any case, I've found that I do well as Protoss, but only if I have good teammates covering for me during the initial phases of the game (Luckily Aaron and Rome fit that description more than adequately). But for now, I hope you enjoyed this trilogy, and expect something that's not SC2 next time (maybe).


-HTMC

Starcraft 2: A Children's Story, Part 2: Of Airships Great and Small

Three races, three men, one team. Rome, Aaron and I banded together for an epic night of Starcraft 2-ing, and although 2 of the more memorable games were when Rome dropped, I now present to you the second of 3 parables designed to inspire young minds to greatness. And by that I mean there's going to be lots of pictures.


We began a game, but about 10 minutes in Rome's copy crashed. I thought all was lost, but Aaron told me not to believe in me, or believe in him, but to believe in the him that believes in... him. Anyway, I persisted, took screenshots, and I present you the following parable (Warning: lots of pictures).

Early on in the game I am struck by a number of opposing Void Rays, who smash my base. Luckily I have a second one up, and hey, I still have two functioning teammates, right?

Oh no wait, Rome dropped. Despair sets in, children, but the brave Aaron tells us to hold our chin high and believe! 

I believe, but that doesn't stop my rebuilt 1st base from getting hit... again. Just as I was about to construct defenses, too. Luckily I still have the second base. Remember children, learn from your mistakes or your opponents are doomed to repeat them on you.

Even if you do adjust, your enemies are wily and crafty. They will improve and continue to harass you.

Fortunately, I have begun to catch up, although obviously still a bit behind. But now I challenge their carriers with my own void rays!

Fire, void rays, fires! Yours will be the ray that pierces the carriers!

No void rays! Don't give up! Believe in yourself!

You can do this!

C'MON!

Ok, you can't do it, but you got close. And anyway, I am no longer one step behind. Carrier has arrived! Enemy proceeds to go boom. 

Meanwhile, children, it is important to keep production up. By this point I have 2 expansions, a fully functioning primary base, ad 6 starports continuously pumping out ships and other buildings researching upgrades. 

Wait a few minutes, and eventually you get this. This, children, is called playing your opponent's game better than he does.

Due to poor micromanagement, the Void Rays rush ahead. It's ok, though, they got this. Totally guys.

Oh no where did all those battleships come from??

Oh Emperor the pain!!

Never fear, my small flying brethren! CARRIER HAS ARRIVED.

All the lasers go pew pew pew!

Line of siege tanks? Blocking my ally? I don't think so!

Reveeeennnggeeeeeee

Regroup! I mention how the previously (trash) talkative enemies have suddenly stopped talking.

They agree

Together again at last, the xenos horde does what it does best: Blast the Imperium.

All's well that ends well! Remember, children, the key to victory is to do whatever the enemy does better than they do. And also learn a couple new nifty strategies.

So yes, overall Aaron and I managed to succeed against 3 despite having lost Rome's talent, which surprised me at best. Also, obviously both of these past accounts have focused mainly on my doings, which leaves out what Aaron is doing the entire time till we meet up (which is usually a lot). The early void ray hampering was incredibly effective against me when my opponent employed it, which made me curious whether I could pull it off? Could I? Tune in tomorrow to find out.


-HTMC

Starcraft 2: A Children's Trilogy, Part 1: Of Robots Great and Small

Three races, three men, one team. Rome, Aaron and I banded together for an epic night of Starcraft 2-ing, and although 2 of the more memorable games were when Rome dropped, I now present to you the first of 3 parables designed to inspire young minds to greatness. And by that I mean there's going to be lots of pictures. But to begin with, the first short story, in which early in the game Aaron recon'd that the enemy was massing carriers and foot soldiers. Protoss counter? Colossi and Stalkers.

This, children, is the Colossus. When sent to an unprotected base, they wreck havoc untold. Fun times for everyone!

When the opponents fail to learn from their first mistake, the only thing to do is repeat the lesson. Base #2 = dust.

Meanwhile, back at the old farm, the counter-strike force continues to mass, as the fatherly Colossi tend to their smaller Stalker brethren. This is how you should get along, children.

In order to reach objectives, namely the enemy base, sometimes obstacles must be overcome. This is best achieved by teamwork, children.

While this was going on, having a teammate who has been similarly massing units can be a great boon. Find and keep treasured allies like this, children. And while the enemy is distracted...

Strike with everything you have! Wipe your enemies from the face of the planet! Show them no mercy, for you shall receive none!

Thus the shiny robots and their terrible xenos brethren triumphed over the enemies, all because of synergy and teamwork, and lots of lasers. Check back tomorrow and the day afterwards for more stories, and sleep well.

-HTMC