So the other day I was playing through the Gears of War 3 DLC "Raam's Shadow," which in a very cool move by Epic is technically a prequel to Gears 1, detailing the fall of one COG-controlled city a couple of weeks post-E-Day. It's a very interesting idea and makes a very stark contrast to the ruin that is the Gears 3 present.
However, one thing I noticed is something that has bothered me in the past that I decided to finally write about: retcons, for lack of a better term. In this case, weapons and enemy types that were not in Gears 1 that are suddenly appearing in this DLC.
In some cases, it makes perfect sense. The retro lancer being in the campaign makes sense, because they would have been around and were only not used till Gears 3 because the Lancer 2.0 was still in abundance/in production. It kind of makes sense a Scorcher would be around, since perhaps Delta Squad would not have used it since it's a speciality weapon.
However, it becomes a problem with other things. For instance, the One-Shot makes an appearance, in Locust hands no less. If either side had access to such a powerful weapon, why did it not make an appearance in Gears 1 or 2? Similarly, Grinders and Bloodmounts show up, and I question why they weren't walking around in Gears 1. Additionally, the Command Center upgrade was added to Gears 3, which allows you to remotely call down Hammer strikes. They decided to add this in to the DLC campaign, and you use it multiple times. If this technology existed, why in Gears 1 and 2 were there all those times when a Hammer strike would have been invaluable but wasn't sure because of a lack of a targeting device? Why wouldn't they just use this apparently common remote targeting system?
"Out of character," as it were, I totally understand why Epic did this. They didn't want to scale back things to only stuff that was available to Gears 1, since that would limit gameplay options, but from a universe perspective for me personally this is the equivalent of breaking the 4th wall. I know it's a relatively minor issue, but it bugs me all the same.
Other series have done things similarly. I was annoyed in Starcraft 2 when it was revealed that the Protoss had a ton of giant, robot death walkers they waited until after the destruction of their homeworld to release. Sure, it made sense to give background to a new unit, but from my in-universe perspective it seemed unrealistic and bugged me.
Similarly, Star Wars EU post-prequels is a huge offender. After the release of Episode 1, seeing Gungans in cantina and just around in general suddenly because very common. In a general rule, it seemed like just because something had been shown in the prequels, it suddenly became essential to include as much prequel races, items, etc in the books and comics, including Luke stumbling across a ship of the type Obi-wan and Anakin fly in episode 2. Again, I understand the intent, but to me it just seems incredibly shoe-horned, especially in a setting that is as widely expanded and defined as the SW EU. Especially irking is the idea of the Clone Wars: prior to the prequels, people never talked about them in detail and it was mostly hushed up. This idea made sense to me, since no one wanted to be heard slandering the Empire, most participants in the Wars were either dead or clones, and even many modern wars aren't talked about much anymore in most circles. However, post prequels all the mystery is shed, and suddenly everyone knows everything about the events and it's a complete atmosphere shift in every way. I know why they did it, and why there's a shift, but it ends up feeling very inconsistent overall.
Overall, although I realize the temptation of adding in new stuff to maintain overall consistency, stuff like this just really tends to bother me, although I couldn't necessarily explain why. I realize the occasional necessity, but I think it's oftentimes overused. As usual, I welcome your feedback (as if I could stop you :-P)
-HTMC
Showing posts with label Starcraft 2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Starcraft 2. Show all posts
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Monday, June 20, 2011
Mind Games, Son, Mind Games: Viewing Traditional Vs. E-Sports
Anyone who has been hanging out with me in the last couple months has probably had me bring up the Starcraft 2 competitive scene, something I've been following rather closely for many weeks now. Indeed, I'm not alone in this; although places such have South Korea have commonly had video games streamed live to audiences of hundreds of thousands, it is only recently becoming more popular in the Western scene. With that said, now that it's catching on, it's growing incredibly rapidly: for instance, MLG Columbus' 3 day tournament had a 16,000 member live audience and served over 1.3 petabytes of livestream data. Impressive numbers, and they only seem to be growing.
When I first started seriously watching the games and began getting really into it, I figured it was another kind of phase; I would get really into it for a few weeks, and then I would lose interest and move onto another hobby. However, here I find myself almost 6 months later still firmly entrenched in this world, and even watching a game while I'm typing this.
I had never really considered myself as someone into sports; I'll watch the Super Bowl, and the rare sports game when it's on TV and others are watching, but in general I couldn't name most sports team or major athletes, and I would never go out of my way to watch a game, especially alone. Despite this, I find myself staying up regularly till 4am to watch GSL and devoting many hours to watch VoDs and Youtube videos from major tournaments. Because of this sudden shift, I began wondering what makes the SC2 competitive scene different than any traditional sports scene that most of my other peers are fascinated with.
When I first started seriously watching the games and began getting really into it, I figured it was another kind of phase; I would get really into it for a few weeks, and then I would lose interest and move onto another hobby. However, here I find myself almost 6 months later still firmly entrenched in this world, and even watching a game while I'm typing this.
I had never really considered myself as someone into sports; I'll watch the Super Bowl, and the rare sports game when it's on TV and others are watching, but in general I couldn't name most sports team or major athletes, and I would never go out of my way to watch a game, especially alone. Despite this, I find myself staying up regularly till 4am to watch GSL and devoting many hours to watch VoDs and Youtube videos from major tournaments. Because of this sudden shift, I began wondering what makes the SC2 competitive scene different than any traditional sports scene that most of my other peers are fascinated with.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Communication and Teamwork; or, Lack Thereof
I greatly enjoy SC2, especially with teammates, and my most common gametype currently is 3v3 with Branden and Aaron. We're currently doing very well, and improving all the time with better teamwork, new strategies and the like.
Obviously communication is a vital part of this, and I suspect that many times we win because we're talking to each other the whole time, whereas often the opponents are random teams who must communicate via typing.
Of course, this assumes we always communicate perfectly. We've had situations, for instance, where Branden communicates some scouting information but one of us fails to understand what this actually means; no one's fault really, but that's how it goes. Other times, though, in the heat of the moment, we even completely miss what our teammates are saying, which can be disastrous; luckily these moments are few.
With that said, certain members of the group are more prone to doing this than others, and even then not necessarily in situations where other things are demanding his attention. Thus, I present the next Rage Comic I have produced, with perhaps more to follow.
Obviously communication is a vital part of this, and I suspect that many times we win because we're talking to each other the whole time, whereas often the opponents are random teams who must communicate via typing.
Of course, this assumes we always communicate perfectly. We've had situations, for instance, where Branden communicates some scouting information but one of us fails to understand what this actually means; no one's fault really, but that's how it goes. Other times, though, in the heat of the moment, we even completely miss what our teammates are saying, which can be disastrous; luckily these moments are few.
With that said, certain members of the group are more prone to doing this than others, and even then not necessarily in situations where other things are demanding his attention. Thus, I present the next Rage Comic I have produced, with perhaps more to follow.
-HTMC
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Fun New Web Apps: A Trial
During dinner today I got in a slightly heated argument about the SC2 story with Max, which resulted in me claiming the SC2 story is bad and the prequel trilogy isn't, while he was arguing the opposite. He told me to try googling it, so I decided to and display my story using the newly discovered Rage Comic Generator!
Because Max apparently enjoyed it, I share it here with you all.
-HTMC
Because Max apparently enjoyed it, I share it here with you all.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
We're Gonna Need A Lot of Wine Barrels: The Problem of Cheese
Ah, cheese. It can mean a great many things, depending on the context, ranging from a popular overpowered choice in a game, a risky early game choice, or just using something that's incredibly annoying. In any game that involves strategy & choices, whether's it's Warhammer 40k or SC2, accusations of cheese and cheese use are abound. It's always a question; if it works, why not use it? Does it cheapen the win to know you're using something "overpowered," or is it simply stupid not to use what the game gives you (although this idea treads dangerously to the Dark Side of glitch abuse).
It's an interesting question, and I'm afraid I can't give you any answers, but I can provide some (hopefully ) hilarious examples. You see, I've always been mostly against cheese, except in specific situations. For instance, 2 common "cheeses" of the Protoss army in SC2 are the cannon rush and Void Rays. The former is the kind of "risky early game strategy" kind of cheese, while the "Cheese Rays" are more the type of thing often considering overpowered (OP). I'd never been a fan of the cannon rush, the only time I've employed it was to annoy Aaron (and it only worked once out of the two times I've used it). On the other hand, I like Void Rays, but recently I've been trying to avoid them in order to a) not be so predictable and b) improve the number of options I can bring to the table in a game.
However, this was all to change.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Sweet Victory and Sour Loss: The Nature of Competitive Games
First of all, credit where credit is due. Thanks twicefold to Rome, once for helping me brainstorm a new, more descriptive (Ed: Debatable) title for this Blog, and second for writing the post that inspired this one. If you click the linky link, you'll find some thoughts on his relationship with competitive gaming, so I thought I'd follow up with mine.
I've also had a gradual growth to competitive gaming. First of all, the majority of my gaming career has been spent offline-- the first real online game I played wasn't till something like Battlefield 2142, which was all of 4 years ago. Likewise it wasn't till I got my 360 that I had a dedicated online gaming platform that I played with consistency.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Blame & Stolen Praise: The Nature of Team-Based Games
My two current games of choice of late have been the online components of Starcraft 2 & Gears of War 2, both of which I enjoy very much. SC2 tends to be when I have friends on, while GoW2 tends to consume my private time. Interestingly enough, neither of these are single-player, and both are team-based multiplayer. The two are pretty different though.
I read an interesting post on the SC2 forums about why people tend to shy away from 1v1 in SC2. It basically boiled down to risk/reward. He hypothesizes that like in a team FPS, with 3v3 and 4v4 SC2 matches you can always take the credit for a win, and blame the others for a loss. 1v1 means you have to face the fact that you have no one to blame but yourself for the loss, which most people can't handle.
I actually think the poster's probably right for the majority of gamers; I've definitely seen a lot of "if my teammates hadn't sucked I would have totally owned you" type comments after my team winning a 3v3. However, I like to think I don't fall under this category. I usually acknowledge my strengths and weaknesses, or comment when I didn't really help in a match, etc. I think it's actually my awareness of my strengths and weaknesses that drives me towards SC2 multiplayer.
I know I'm not great at early game, especially scouting & early harass. I could devote more time to improving these, but since as I stated I tend to play SC2 with friends, it's easier to just play on a team with someone like Aaron who complements my weaknesses with his strengths and come out all the better for it. Naturally I'll want to improve eventually, but it's easier to focus on improvement when you have a reliable ally to fall back on.
Which leads me to my next point: SC2 is actually far, far harder to tell who's pulling the team, anyway. Numbers often will show overall who was "doing" the most, but let me present a game from today.
Rome, Aaron and I played a ranked 3v3, and decided before the match started to do a (late) early T1 rush. We were going along, and suddenly Aaron got attacked. We managed to fight it off, but Aaron lost the majority of his base. However, we counterattacked (since Aaron had taken down a good chunk of the forces) and Rome and my combined force managed to take out the 3 enemy bases, one by one*, while Aaron rebuilt his base and lent a bit of support towards the end.
Looking at the numbers and graphs afterwards, it would seem Rome and I carried the game and Aaron didn't help. What that ignores is the fact that if Aaron hadn't defended the rush well enough, had he just been steamrolled, Rome and I couldn't have gone on the offensive like we did. While the game gives us credit numbers-wise, without Aaron being the excellent player he is, we probably would have lost. And that's why SC2 is hard to boil down in terms of team gameplay; it's often a combination of, say, Aaron's expansion harassment, Rome's raiding, and my heavy support that will win a game, and even if I destroy the most buildings or whatnot, our success is very interlinked, and we are all pretty dependent on one another (assuming the other players aren't completely incompetent)
I want to contrast this with Gears. It's also a very team-driven game; for instance, whenever a player drops and it turns into 4v5 instead of 5v5, the team with 5 has always won in my experience. There are rare exceptions will I will see the last player on a team beat the other 3 players, but those are just that: rare exceptions. This is a game, however, where it's very obvious who's helping the team, and numbers are quite relevant. I often seen organized teams (i.e. people obviously talking to one another) annihilate the opposing team, as often if not more often than one player carrying everyone else.
This is why it bugs me when so often good players will split off and do their own thing, and then be faced 4v1 because the other team is working together, and then complain that the other players aren't helping out. Sure, they usually kill 1 or 2 of the other opponents, but they get upset that apparently they're the only "good player." The simple fact is if they stuck with other teammates and used their skills instead of essentially hiding, we'd probably BE winning. In fact, if my team is losing, I usually end up following someone else, and more often than not it means we end up winning the round. It's a team tactical game, yet some people still think it's Halo or MW2. Master Chiefing it may earn you the kills and the points associated with it, but it won't always win you the round. In fact, my most memorable win recently was me killing the entire 5 members of the opposing team in one round, and that was only possible because they weren't watching their back because the rest of my team was firing on them.
What's my point with all this? Good question. I guess I'm lucky to have such a good group of gamer friends, ones who I can play a game of SC2 with and not be blamed for being the sole reason our team loses, or never get credit for us winning. One aspect of gaming I absolutely hate is the amount of idiots on multiplayer games, and I suspect that if I had been playing SC2 online alone I would have ceased playing it weeks ago. While it's nice to be the top player in a winning team of Gears, it's far more satisfying to congratulate known teammates after a SC2 win, or even to analyze a loss to improve next time. I think this sense of camaraderie is the real reason I haven't played much 1v1 in SC2; I get that experience from Gears, and I get my "real" team based game with friends on SC2.
-HTMC
*Funny story from that, regarding stupid end game complaints. As we were killing the last base, the guy complained that "no one builds base defenses." Rome and I asked if he meant his teammates, since we had just blown up their bases, and they had defenses. Enemy guy responds "no you guys," meaning Aaron had no defenses. I respond "...but it didn't matter," since we had obviously just won. He keeps repeating that no one builds defenses, which would make sense if Aaron not building defenses had meant we had lost the game... but we hadn't. We're still not sure why he brought it up, but I guess it supports the point that most people will blame anyone else but themselves for winning or losing a team game... even if that other person is on the other team :-P
I read an interesting post on the SC2 forums about why people tend to shy away from 1v1 in SC2. It basically boiled down to risk/reward. He hypothesizes that like in a team FPS, with 3v3 and 4v4 SC2 matches you can always take the credit for a win, and blame the others for a loss. 1v1 means you have to face the fact that you have no one to blame but yourself for the loss, which most people can't handle.
I actually think the poster's probably right for the majority of gamers; I've definitely seen a lot of "if my teammates hadn't sucked I would have totally owned you" type comments after my team winning a 3v3. However, I like to think I don't fall under this category. I usually acknowledge my strengths and weaknesses, or comment when I didn't really help in a match, etc. I think it's actually my awareness of my strengths and weaknesses that drives me towards SC2 multiplayer.
I know I'm not great at early game, especially scouting & early harass. I could devote more time to improving these, but since as I stated I tend to play SC2 with friends, it's easier to just play on a team with someone like Aaron who complements my weaknesses with his strengths and come out all the better for it. Naturally I'll want to improve eventually, but it's easier to focus on improvement when you have a reliable ally to fall back on.
Which leads me to my next point: SC2 is actually far, far harder to tell who's pulling the team, anyway. Numbers often will show overall who was "doing" the most, but let me present a game from today.
Rome, Aaron and I played a ranked 3v3, and decided before the match started to do a (late) early T1 rush. We were going along, and suddenly Aaron got attacked. We managed to fight it off, but Aaron lost the majority of his base. However, we counterattacked (since Aaron had taken down a good chunk of the forces) and Rome and my combined force managed to take out the 3 enemy bases, one by one*, while Aaron rebuilt his base and lent a bit of support towards the end.
Looking at the numbers and graphs afterwards, it would seem Rome and I carried the game and Aaron didn't help. What that ignores is the fact that if Aaron hadn't defended the rush well enough, had he just been steamrolled, Rome and I couldn't have gone on the offensive like we did. While the game gives us credit numbers-wise, without Aaron being the excellent player he is, we probably would have lost. And that's why SC2 is hard to boil down in terms of team gameplay; it's often a combination of, say, Aaron's expansion harassment, Rome's raiding, and my heavy support that will win a game, and even if I destroy the most buildings or whatnot, our success is very interlinked, and we are all pretty dependent on one another (assuming the other players aren't completely incompetent)
I want to contrast this with Gears. It's also a very team-driven game; for instance, whenever a player drops and it turns into 4v5 instead of 5v5, the team with 5 has always won in my experience. There are rare exceptions will I will see the last player on a team beat the other 3 players, but those are just that: rare exceptions. This is a game, however, where it's very obvious who's helping the team, and numbers are quite relevant. I often seen organized teams (i.e. people obviously talking to one another) annihilate the opposing team, as often if not more often than one player carrying everyone else.
This is why it bugs me when so often good players will split off and do their own thing, and then be faced 4v1 because the other team is working together, and then complain that the other players aren't helping out. Sure, they usually kill 1 or 2 of the other opponents, but they get upset that apparently they're the only "good player." The simple fact is if they stuck with other teammates and used their skills instead of essentially hiding, we'd probably BE winning. In fact, if my team is losing, I usually end up following someone else, and more often than not it means we end up winning the round. It's a team tactical game, yet some people still think it's Halo or MW2. Master Chiefing it may earn you the kills and the points associated with it, but it won't always win you the round. In fact, my most memorable win recently was me killing the entire 5 members of the opposing team in one round, and that was only possible because they weren't watching their back because the rest of my team was firing on them.
What's my point with all this? Good question. I guess I'm lucky to have such a good group of gamer friends, ones who I can play a game of SC2 with and not be blamed for being the sole reason our team loses, or never get credit for us winning. One aspect of gaming I absolutely hate is the amount of idiots on multiplayer games, and I suspect that if I had been playing SC2 online alone I would have ceased playing it weeks ago. While it's nice to be the top player in a winning team of Gears, it's far more satisfying to congratulate known teammates after a SC2 win, or even to analyze a loss to improve next time. I think this sense of camaraderie is the real reason I haven't played much 1v1 in SC2; I get that experience from Gears, and I get my "real" team based game with friends on SC2.
-HTMC
*Funny story from that, regarding stupid end game complaints. As we were killing the last base, the guy complained that "no one builds base defenses." Rome and I asked if he meant his teammates, since we had just blown up their bases, and they had defenses. Enemy guy responds "no you guys," meaning Aaron had no defenses. I respond "...but it didn't matter," since we had obviously just won. He keeps repeating that no one builds defenses, which would make sense if Aaron not building defenses had meant we had lost the game... but we hadn't. We're still not sure why he brought it up, but I guess it supports the point that most people will blame anyone else but themselves for winning or losing a team game... even if that other person is on the other team :-P
Saturday, August 28, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
How to Really Annoy Your Customers
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
Friday, August 20, 2010
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
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:
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
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
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
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
Monday, August 16, 2010
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:
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
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. |
-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
Thursday, August 12, 2010
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. |
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| "Oh man, killing these supply depots is easy. Oh hey, wait, what's that in the distance?" |
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| "OH EMPEROR WHERE DID THEY ALL COME FROM" And thus ends the saga of the Reapers. |
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| Having stripped the defenses, the Void Rays (reinforced for the 3rd time) wreck their trademark havoc on the base. |
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| Good end! |
-HTMC
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
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).
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
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).
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| 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? |
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| Oh no wait, Rome dropped. Despair sets in, children, but the brave Aaron tells us to hold our chin high and believe! |
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| 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. |
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| Even if you do adjust, your enemies are wily and crafty. They will improve and continue to harass you. |
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| Fortunately, I have begun to catch up, although obviously still a bit behind. But now I challenge their carriers with my own void rays! |
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| Fire, void rays, fires! Yours will be the ray that pierces the carriers! |
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| No void rays! Don't give up! Believe in yourself! |
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| You can do this! |
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| C'MON! |
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| 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. |
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| 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. |
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| Wait a few minutes, and eventually you get this. This, children, is called playing your opponent's game better than he does. |
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| Due to poor micromanagement, the Void Rays rush ahead. It's ok, though, they got this. Totally guys. |
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| Oh no where did all those battleships come from?? |
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| Oh Emperor the pain!! |
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| Never fear, my small flying brethren! CARRIER HAS ARRIVED. |
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| All the lasers go pew pew pew! |
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| Line of siege tanks? Blocking my ally? I don't think so! |
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| Reveeeennnggeeeeeee |
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| Regroup! I mention how the previously (trash) talkative enemies have suddenly stopped talking. |
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| They agree |
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| Together again at last, the xenos horde does what it does best: Blast the Imperium. |
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| 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. |
-HTMC
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
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.
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| This, children, is the Colossus. When sent to an unprotected base, they wreck havoc untold. Fun times for everyone! |
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| When the opponents fail to learn from their first mistake, the only thing to do is repeat the lesson. Base #2 = dust. |
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| 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. |
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| In order to reach objectives, namely the enemy base, sometimes obstacles must be overcome. This is best achieved by teamwork, children. |
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| 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... |
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| 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
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