Taking the Fun Out of StarCraft II 293
StarCraft II lead designer Dustin Browder recently spoke with Gamasutra about how designing a real-time strategy game for competition can sometimes be at odds with designing something purely for the sake of fun.
"'It took me a year and a half to figure this out,' said Browder, an enthusiastic designer who might also be around the top 10 percent in the world in terms of speed-talking. 'I kept trying to shove stuff in that was fun but wasn't a sport,' he said. 'And everybody would tell me "no," and I wouldn't understand why. And I thought they were all jerks. I didn't know, right? I couldn't figure it out.' ... 'It took me a long time to understand why this sport value is so important,' Browder continued. The development team kept itself in check, nixing units that overlapped with the roles of other units and dumping units that were deemed too complicated. Some of the units cut were fun to use, but just didn't fit with the game's objectives as an eSport. 'It makes it so challenging for designers on the project to come up with new and good ideas,' said Browder. 'We could sit here right now, and come up with 10 great ideas for an RTS. But I almost guarantee you that all of those would get shot down for a sport.'"
The thing with 'adding fun' to a game is that... (Score:2)
...the game players are already having fun playing the game as it is, and even if new features may be fun, learning to use them in itself is not so fun at all.
Re:The thing with 'adding fun' to a game is that.. (Score:4, Interesting)
learning to use them in itself is not so fun at all.
I find in most games, learning the mechanics of the game adds to the enjoyment of the game. It's like reading a good novel.
Which is why I shy away from "sport" games. Once you get past the thin gloss of the production values of a game like Starcraft 2, you're left with a mechanical Quest for Mastery. Instead of a novel, you're reading a technical manual.
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i think it also reflects the degree to which starcraft has been sid meier-ed, that is to say ossified by its own past success and petrified of messing it up. I don't really think anyone knows what makes a good game. it's an art and a lottery all at once, and one that you can't learn from e.g. majoring in game development at college.
It's the same reason that movie sequels are usually terrible.
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Once you get past the thin gloss of the production values of a game like Starcraft 2, you're left with a mechanical Quest for Mastery. Instead of a novel, you're reading a technical manual.
Some (many) people like that; its why Arenas are popular in WoW (although it takes many many months to learn all the different classes), and why people enjoy FPSes-- its not like "point gun at head, pull trigger" takes very long to figure out, and learning the intricacies of any given FPS wont generally take more than a few hours, but people still play them.
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Personally, I thoroughly enjoy the "Quest for Mastery" and it's what puts "sport" games so far above others to me. Furthermore, I think the game is actually really fun to play. Compare this to boring games like World of Warcraft where the game is pure monotony and the only thing you're improving is your character's gear.
SCII is pure monotony.
Nearly every match is decided in the first 2 minutes, and the deciding factor is nothing more than "who clicked faster" or "who won the rock paper scissors match"?
Every patch since release has sought to tighten players down into fewer and fewer possible build orders at the beginning of the game.
A few months ago they made it so Terrans HAD to have a Supply Depot up in order to build a Barracks. Prior to that, you could build both simultaneously, or, if you're an idiot, build a Barracks
Excuses (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like an excuse for poor game design. Good games can be fun and competitive at the same time. Look at Marvel vs Capcom. You can button-mash and not know what the hell is going on and still have a blast. You can also distill a perfect strategy and play-style and win tons of money playing the game for sport. At what point did Blizzard decide they had to pick one or the other? Maybe this isn't the same company I knew from my youth.
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>>At what point did Blizzard decide they had to pick one or the other? Maybe this isn't the same company I knew from my youth.
Nuclear launch detected.
Nuclear launch detected.
Nuclear launch detected.
Yeah, it's still fun.
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For me the fun of Star Craft was with the Protost. Build up enough to make cannons and a few of those mind controlling guys. Sneak into the enemy base Mind control some of their builders. Take them away and build up an army of all the races to go against your opponents. While you put a border of at least 3 layers of cannons around their base. I have won games against people with good stats with just focusing only on making cannons. But that is with star craft 1. They probably reworked the game so we co
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You clearly don't know how to play Marvel Vs Capcom.
Good players can eat button mashers for breakfast.
Besides, in terms of "bad design" Marvel vs Capcom is pretty up there.
(Seriously between it and it's two sequels, MvC2/MvC3, it's seriously friggin' broken.)
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Good players can eat button mashers for breakfast.
All that means is that the button mashers can't have much fun if they have to compete against "good players".
Re:Excuses (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah. No.
RTS balance and fighting game balance are way the fuck different. RTS balance, or at least in SC2, RELIES on having every race be balanced (or so close to balanced as to give them all decent representation, let's not argue if SC2 is balanced yet. See: Young meta) and have multiple good builds and unit compositions and strategies within each race. As compared to MvC2 where how many characters out of the massive roster were tournament usable? Hm. Magneto, Cable, Storm, Sentinel, Psylocke, Strider (if your name is clockw0rk), Doom (mostly see previous parenthetical), CapCom, and Cyclops. And all the rest are thrown out. All the rest aren't used. And how did SC2 avoid that? By what was talked about in this article. SC2 isn't super revolutionary, I'll agree. But as a competitive game? I'd say it's outstanding. As someone who liked Brood War and likes SC2, but also sucks at micro
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I hate that argument, really.
But, I wouldn't say watching progamers has taken the fun out of SC1 and SC2 for me. It's akin to, well... when I play any sport. I'm not serving the tennis ball at 120 MPH, but it's still fun. I just don't expect to be a pro.
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Just like watching someone play sports is more pathetic than playing sports, right? Or watching someone sing instead of learning how to sing//play music instead of learning how to play music?
You just listed the reasons why I hate watching sports and don't own music (except one CD from a local band from 15 years ago that I can't find). Although s/pathetic/boring/ is more accurate.
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Oh, that's silly. I find eating a really good Chicago hot dog "a blast" and they've made a sport out of competitive hot dog eating.
I've had a blast playing Chicago-style 16-inch softball where the pitcher has a beer in one hand and the ball in the other and that's a goddamn sport. I've had a blast bowling, riding my bike, doing martial arts, riding a horse, skiing, snowboarding, dancing, play
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Except the former is good and the latter is not nearly as good. I still maintain that this "story" of the "difficulty" of making a game that is also "sport" is just a way to explain away the fact that the sequel was not as good as the original.
Interesting that even in "sport" there is room for an aesthetic.
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It should have a space. Ever seen "pro-golfing" or "pro-basketball"? Pro- means "for", pro without the hyphen is a shortening of "professional".
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Oh, that's silly. I find eating a really good Chicago hot dog "a blast" and they've made a sport out of competitive hot dog eating.
That's exactly the point they were making the Chicago hot dog is fun, it's got condiments. Competitive hot dog eating involves plain hot dogs, frequently dipped in water (i.e. NOT fun).
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That's exactly the point they were making the Chicago hot dog is fun, it's got condiments. Competitive hot dog eating involves plain hot dogs, frequently dipped in water (i.e. NOT fun).
Interesting point, Barry, but what about all the other things I mention?:
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With the following activities, I think it's likely you enjoyed them largely due to the company (i.e. you wouldn't be doing them by yourself for entertainment, or if you did it would be greatly diminished): bowling, dancing, playing darts
The other activities (riding my bike, d
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I mean, I LOVE SC:BW and SC2 progaming. But Evo has been around since long before 2002 and Counterstrike was huge in the US around the same time that SC started to become huge in S. Korea. That was definitely eSports. And even before that, there was Quake 3 and...
Starcraft didn't set the concept. SC:BW just made it HUGE in S. Korea and that's affecting the rest of the world. FPS watching never caught on. SC:BW watching did.
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So StarCraft was a dominant game when the World Cyber Games started. That doesn't mean it originated the idea of "esports" (a term I LOATHE by the way). I was playing in for-money Quake tournaments two years before StarCraft came out.
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and some of us played galaga for money in arcades in the 80s. and our parents played pinball for money in the 50s. your point is what?
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You're totally forgetting about arcade and console gaming before all this new-fangled computer stuff (though, I suppose, that is what Evo is at its roots).
In terms of "modern" computer gaming, there was a professional league in the states competing using Quake in 1997 (see: Cyberathlete Professional League).
Starcraft had not even been published at that point.
Sure, Starcraft (and South Korea) deserve huge props for what they've contributed to the gaming scene but I'm not sure I would feel correct in saying t
Are professional players a majority of sales? (Score:3, Insightful)
This only makes sense to me if pro players make up a majority of *buyers*. Or if people playing multi in general have the same desires for gameplay, even if they're not competing. But frankly, as a more casual gamer who enjoys "fun", this seems like pandering to a potential minority of hardcore players at the expense of my enjoyment, and that irritates me.
Re:Are professional players a majority of sales? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Tell that to the makers of professional sports equipment (shoes, baseball gloves, bats, hockey sticks etc.)
It's a simple fact: many people buy what the pros buy and would be insulted if told they should buy a product "dumbed-down" to their level.
Flawed (Score:2)
That is sports equipment. By your anology, I would as a regular person want my game of baseball/soccer (whatever suits you) with mates to include rigerous dope testing... we would pass with ease. We are far to drunk to piss in a metal trough, let alone a cup.
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Really? Is that so? I can't remember anyone complaining about steering or breaking aid in his SUV just because those Formula One cars must not have them and it's dumbing down the experience. I also don't see people buying only 8+ feet skis because the ace race skiers use them (for the obvious reason that they have the skill and muscles to turn them while getting stability at the 100mph downhill races). Or if cross-country is more your speed, do you get the "slick" pro-cross-country skis instead of the "ribb
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No, what they are doing is achieving long term sales as people will continue playing it for years to come (see SC1) - this formula works well.
I play 1 hour of SC2 a month nowadays - but I watch 25 hours a month on justin.tv / gomtv.net or other sites which are showing tournaments.
Infact as I type this post right now, I'm watching GSL Code A round of 32.
The sport design is smart, especially as they seperated the SP balance of the units from the MP balance now, the SP game is .. well pretty darn good (not as
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Are professional sports players the majority of people buying base/basket/footballs? I would say no, but the culture created around having professionals generates business.
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Casual gamers don't have enough games to keep them happy?
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sure, many users won't rise to the level of the
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The people that get upset about trash talk are so much worse than trash talkers.
Of course they are: how can they dare to want to play a nice game against someone else? It's not a game if you don't insult someone who you don't know nothing at all. And, of course, it's not the trash talker's fault: insulting the opponent is basic in every game or sport you care to think about. That's why, whenever you get into it even a bit seriously, you get penalties f
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The thing about trash talk online is I can't possibly know anything about you so it should not sting at all like if I insulted somebody I know or saw in person.
The thing about trash talk online is that it is the trademark of a troll. It doesn't matter whether it is an online game, online chat or online forum.
Its called mind games and if a stranger who knows nothing about you with a vested interest in making it seem like you aren't doing very well is getting to you, then you should probably look in to ways of boosting your self esteem.
It's not mind games, it is plain rudeness. If you play better than me you don't need that. If you consider you need to do that... well, I probably won't keep playing with you, since I have better ways to learn play better, and it probably isn't me who needs a self steem boost: I don't need to insult people online -unless, of course, I know them other times and
what's wrong with letting the game be a game? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm stuck in bronze forever, probably because I don't care about timing and build orders and unit counters, but I have fun playing, and doing all that stuff to climb up the ladder would take the fun out of it for me. And I really don't care about being bronze. What's wrong with playing the game for fun? I wish they'd just let us use all those fun units on unranked games.
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I think you can use different units in certain custom game maps in an online game (the units from the campaign). Custom SC2 games seem to have quite a bit of latitude in what the game designer puts in.
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yeah, I know about the custom maps, but the units from the single player campaign are basically the terran units from SC1 plus the diamondback, and it's not like people are creating new units (can you even import custom 3D models on those maps?). This guy seems to be talking about a bunch of actually _new_ units that they created and then threw away.
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Everyone says that..... until a unit gets abused, and the only way to beat it is to mass more of them than your opponent.
People making the argument you make remind me of people talking about government spending. Everyone wants less of it, but everyone expects the trash to go away when it gets put on the curb. Once you actually get down to the specifics, suddenly this 'competitive balance' is actually what makes the game fun for EVERYONE.
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You just said you have fun playing. That means they've already succeeded in keeping it competitive at the high level and fun at the low level. That's win/win as far as I'm concerned.
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You might ask the same thing about physical sports. What's wrong with just letting your kids play football instead of pushing them to make the team, win the game, get the trophy? Why does every sport turn into a competition? It's a game, people; it's played for fun. Running should be for fun, not track and field. Baseball should be a game in the park, not a national championship. Basketball, swimming, volleyball, all turned into fights with the "enemy", whoever that may be. And don't get me started on peopl
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They call those custom games and let people make their own fun games and distribute it over battle.net.
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Re:what's wrong with letting the game be a game? (Score:5, Insightful)
1. At the higher levels it's all build order and strat and multitasking at an insane level. It's fun, but when you get to the higher levels the experimentation in the game is pretty much gone. If you experiment at all with a new strat you are dead.
Emphasis mine.
This is every high-level competition I can think of. Ever played Bridge, Poker, or Euchre? You almost know what the other player has. They know you know, so they pretend to have something else. You know they know you know, so you figure out what they would have that would make them want to pretend to have what they're pretending to have, ad infinitum.
The thing that really drives the concept home is when you play against an amateur. I remember getting my ass handed to me in Street Fighter II by someone who couldn't even throw a fireball, because I was so used to being able to predict exactly what they were going to do, I'd start the counter before I even thought about it, and planning counters to their counter to my counter ... and then I was dead, to a high roundhouse kick that any pro player would know was absolute suicide. Ever play poker against someone who has absolutely no idea how to play? They're the perfect bluffs, because they don't even know they're bluffing, and people get pissed. Which is funny to me, because you'd think that it's the first time they've ever come up against the wildness of an amateur's play. That scene in The 40-Year-Old Virgin happens all the time.
Don't get me wrong, I hate Starcraft and think it's an unfun, terrible game, but you won't find an escape from this particular issue as long as people have a theory of mind.
New Super Mario Bros Wii (Score:4, Interesting)
Designing a game that would be fun for beginners/casual players and challenging for experts at the same time is extremely difficult. Ten or twenty years ago there were no games like that. Now, with the popularization of things like tutorials and achievements, we are getting closer, but we still aren't there in most genres.
I think the game that does the best job at this (out of those I have seen) is New Super Mario Bros Wii. It has several layers of complexity and can be played at various levels of challenge, from using the bubble or the Super Guide to get you out of the levels to getting all the star coins in the game or finding tricks for infinite lives. I have seen both absolute beginners and old-school hardcore gamers having loads of fun with this game (even when both kinds of players are playing *together*!) and that is truly remarkable, and something to mark in the history of game design.
Now, how could this be applied to Starcraft II? No idea...
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Designing a game that would be fun for beginners/casual players and challenging for experts at the same time is extremely difficult. Ten or twenty years ago there were no games like that.
Funny you should day that, because Starcraft 1 (which existed 13 years ago) is still a huge professional sport in South Korea (there are two cable TV channels specialized in it). :-)
But I think that most of what you said is actually true, but is not what the interview is about. The challenge for experts is in playing with other people, because all professionals and most hardcore players find the single-player campaign ridiculously easy (in both Starcraft 1 and 2). The story is about the balance of making a
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"Now, how could this be applied to Starcraft II? No idea..."
C&C Red Alert had the option to set maximum tech level for the game. Total Annihilation had the option to specify how many of each unit type were constructible. I think those are great ways to allow different fun unit types into a game. Players could even save game setup types as some kind of profile.
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I agree with your assessment of Super Mario Bros Wii. But it's not a new thing at all. That design principle has applied to Super Mario Bros going back to the days of SMB3.
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Well compare it to single player SC2 then. There really aren't that many levels of complexity you can play at. Sure, you have different *difficulties* but it's not really the same thing.
Think about Super Mario and how long it took you to figure out how to play. You didn't need a tutorial or a manual. EVERY kid knew how to play that game.
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I bet not one of the people here who say "Starcraft sucks" or "Starcraft is no fun" can beat the game on hard (never mind brutal) without cheats.
Well, that hardly seems profound. I mean, if a person doesn't think a game is fun, why would he attempt to master it? Does he have some kind of faith that if he sticks with it, he'll acquire a taste for it?
The truth is game developers... (Score:5, Insightful)
... have lost their ability to have confidence in themselves. The games are now designed around what they perceive 'the audience' wants, starcraft 1 was such a hit BECAUSE the design team did not have pressure of korean pro gaming to stifle their creativity.
Starcraft 2 had to be the most conservative and underwhelming sequel of all time. Not only that the single player story felt like an alternate starcraft universe that had very little to do with the first game. It just goes to show that 12 years is too long a time to wait between sequels for a hit game to keep continuity since most of the original developers of Starcraft 1 were long gone by the time SC2 was released.
The internet has become an echo chamber for ignorant fans and developers to heap praise on themselves when the games they are putting out are conservative to mediocre at best simply because there are so many blind fanboys these days.
Re:The truth is game developers... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really agree with this (except in so much that SC2 is a fairly conservative follow-up). I happen to find SC2 multiplayer awesome, I enjoy the competition even though I'm dreadful at it (struggling not to be demoted back to bronze). I think the game itself is well designed and is a lot of *fun* (otherwise I wouldn't play it).
I also enjoy seeing the pro-gaming aspect of it, some of the TSL games last weekend were awesome.
I think Blizzard have designed a good game here, not only do people like me who just play casually find it a lot of fun, but also the pro-gamers like it too. It's an achievement that the game is easy enough to pick up for a casual but deep enough for the pro.
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Then they are wrong, or the word Amazing* doesn't mean what they think it means.
And no, it's NOT a matter of opinion. It's a matter of there being smething amazing in the game, and there is not.
It's a good tournament game in that ti is balanced. But there really isn't anything creative, new, or risky.
I guess you could define amazing as a cold, boring, Conservative but balance sequel. But if you do I suspect you also thing milk is spicy.
seriously, name something Amazing about they game that's outside the SP
My Kind Of Game... (Score:2)
This is why I really like Minecraft. Fun stuff can slide in without concerns about it interfering with it being a "sport".
Starcraft and Fun (Score:2)
I play Starcraft 2 from time to time, but not nearly as much as I played the first Starcraft, and mostly because I don't have a lot of fun playing the multiplayer. From the article it looks like they built SC2 to cater directly to the sport play. If it wasn't for the single player, I would think twice before buying future games from Blizzard. Don't want to spend money on something I won't have fun with,
they left my fun out early (Score:5, Insightful)
Once they took out one of the only two play modes I would ever use (LAN play), and threw in the DRM, I was never going to have "fun" with it, since I wasn't going to buy it.
I either need to get SC/BW running under WINE, or get a dedicated VM going for it, so I can repurpose the Win2K box that I use for playing the original.
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For the record, SC:BW runs great under Wine, including the official NoCD patch and battle.net (or LAN). Some people have complained that it has higher latency than on Windows, but it also crashes less than on the latest Windows versions, so it may be a wash. (I'd forgotten how bad the play drop experience was in SC, and even WC3, after so much time playing RTS with better handling of this event... these days, it's just "Pause please, I need to reboot my computer to fix the lag" and he's back in a couple min
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Re:they left my fun out early (Score:5, Informative)
If you hate region locking you made the right move. The region locking of Starcraft 2 takes it to insane levels. eg. If you make a map using the in-built editor you can only upload it to your region!
So those of us in the more obscure regions simply aren't allowed to play the custom maps made by people in other regions.
Re:they left my fun out early (Score:4, Insightful)
Why? How does that benefit them in any way? It's not like they will be making more money. That's just mind blowing.
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Once they took out one of the only two play modes I would ever use (LAN play), and threw in the DRM, I was never going to have "fun" with it, since I wasn't going to buy it.
So, you don't buy any games, ever? It's 2011 and only a tiny tiny minority (5% or less) have any sort of LAN support and the vast majority (95%+) have some sort of DRM.
But but but... (Score:2)
I don't want to play an eSport.. I want to play something _fun_.
You are missing the point (Score:2)
Not having unbalanced units, especially early in the game, is not simply an "eSports" thing, it is a multiplayer thing.
If you are building up a decent base, and then suddenly get a drop of unbalanced unit of type X early on, which wipes out your production, and then the opponent repeats this until you are dead, you will not have fun in multiplayer and will stop playing it at all.
Clearly that isn't good for a game that is known for its multiplayer although the campaign is good too.
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"Fun" units stop being fun when they are losing you the game. "Fun" units ruin the game for people that want to use them but don't understand it's almost never s
SC2 MP (Score:2)
I don't really play SC2 multiplayer. Every time I do I get stomped into the floor because the other guy's drilled his build order to a fine art. It just rubs me the wrong way that most games of SC2 (in the minor leagues, anyway) are decided almost entirely upon who has the best build order.
For the record, I did beat the campaign and thought it was a blast, and I'll still play against the AI (on easy and medium) from time to time.
I dunno, I just don't have fun losing (at least, for reasons I perceive as arbi
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Agreed here.
What's funny is that the only way I have fun is when I play people just as lazy as me. I hate the whole micro thing. I feel like you have to be a special kind of obsessed to really master that game. And well...that's no fun. You can't exactly have a beer while playing SC2.
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I don't play SC2 to learn, I play SC2 to have fun. Losing sucks, I don't like things that suck, therefore I don't like losing. Simple.
Besides, what, exactly do I not understand about it? That smacks of an elitist cop-out.
I just don't like the idea that you can take a crucial part of gameplay and make a formula that is definitively "the best" using a computer. There shouldn't be a "best" strategy, there should be many good strategies that work based upon your methods. The fact that we've determined the most
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Note the "Reasons I perceive as" preceding that.
SC2 is simply not fun (Score:4, Interesting)
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I'll agree with you there. I really don't touch the game anymore as it just stresses me the hell out. I'd love to see like a co-op story mode or something for the casual gamer who still wants to play with friends. Looks like we have to rely on the third party map makers out there though.
Well you know it isn't for the laidback (Score:4, Interesting)
Simply by the fact that it tracks "actions per minute" and that the stat matters. The game is about speed in a big way. Top players perform multiple actions per second on average. There is no time for sitting back and looking at the strategic overview, you have to be doing something continually. That is not a game that can be played slow pace.
Personally, I'd really love to see a RTS like Homeworld again for online play. Homeworld itself was marred by cheaters but I think it had a good design. Things happened much slower, meaning strategy played a much bigger role and tactics a lesser one. While you could make differences in fights giving tactical commands to your ships, overall the determining factor was the strategy used. Also the fights progressed slowly, so you had time to analyze what has happening and respond.
While that would bore the ADD "eSports" people to tears it was nice for people who wanted a more relaxed game.
As a side note you might want to check out Sins of a Solar Empire if you haven't. It is a much larger scale game, more like what you get in a TBS, but is realtime. It does focus more on the "strategy over tactics" thing.
Custom Games (Score:2)
I think that what is being said is that the variety of units has had to be dulled down in competitive games. I have heard people say that this makes it easier to watch but there is still a lot of complexity in the game with three races and all their differences.
If you want to try out all sorts of units, there are a ton of custom games where you can use every unit available.
For me, the game is the best in many years and has been keeping me going for 8 months now - there are all sorts of different things t
Meh (Score:5, Interesting)
I despise StarCraft. I really, honestly do. This isn't some trolling to piss people off, this is me venting.
StarCraft is all about speed and memorization. In that way it's more like a side-scrolling fighting game, where the person who can execute the right combos at the right time wins. Wrong build order? You lose. Didn't mass enough units by the five minute mark? You lose. I play StarCraft 2 with some friends from time to time and I do reasonably well at it, but it's nowhere near as fun as other games. It feels more like a job. I have no desire to play it solo.
What really disappointed me from the start is how the game utterly lacks any sort of reward for solid tactical decisions. High ground? That's negated by simple line-of-sight. Every shot is a hit, and every hit scores exactly the same damage. Compare that to Total Annihilation which at least attempted to give some realism in how units move and fire and the effects of terrain. TA's engine was FAR superior to StarCraft.
StarCraft is a clickfest, the closest thing RTS has to an arcade game. And it's tainted the whole genre.
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All RTS are a click fest, always have been. SC didn't change anything.
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My God. It's so beautiful. An excellent argument for a small amount of chance to be inserted in to StarCraft.
The Koreans would riot.
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Then make it fucking optional. Or non approved eSport add-on or what the fuck ever.
Of course, they have ultimately done the same thing that, for me, is ruining sports. Taking the chance out. Yeah, sometime there will be a wrong call, yeah sometimes the weather will be wonky, too bad. If you boil it down to numbers, why even play?
Or make it part of the game and fuck the Koreans.
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Company of Heroes isn't. Granted there are times in my games where I push the 150 CPM mark for a minute or two, that's during the most intense fighting when I'm trying to micromanage a half-dozen tanks while keeping my infantry in the fight and in good cover. My average CPM for CoH is something like 30-40, and that's counting one command for each unit in a group...so a group of 3 units hits 30 cpm with one command every 6 seconds.
Then please add some (Score:2)
non tournament approved fun back into starcraft... Please.
The game is so..routine.
Have your plan, implement your plan, if you chose the wrong plan, well to bad there is not time to adjust to new information.
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I'm pretty sure that this "everyone" you mean is confined to the same group of jerks who look down on people who "read" and, omg, those losers who actually post on uber-geek-loser sites like slashdot.
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On the flip side I also con
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You are so wrong. It's because of the manic button-pressers that game developers routinely nerf the shit out of games and game elements to get "balance"
Screw balance, I want my massively overpowered and overgunned characters because they are fun to play with.
Re:Sport...pfft. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are plenty of games that are fun. It's not surprising, that there's a niche for games that are a sport.
Football, volleyball, tennis, etc. - all are both games and a sport. What's wrong with some computer games also being an eSport?
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There are plenty of games that are fun. It's not surprising, that there's a niche for games that are a sport.
Football, volleyball, tennis, etc. - all are both games and a sport. What's wrong with some computer games also being an eSport?
What's wrong is that it's not physically demanding! Sports must demand a certain degree of physical prowess that only a rare few can obtain. What's next? Nerds playing board-games like checkers is a sport? Chess?! Oh... wait... That's right: Mental prowess, esp. speed of thought is required in both games of skill and (some) physical sports.
Silly me, here I was about to make an ass of myself like the GP did...
To be fair I find watching others play a game boring (esp. on TV). I would much rather en
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It's a damn computer game.
Honestly, I feel the same way about 'real' sports such as Football. They're just games. I don't understand why people take them so seriously.
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If it were as lucrative and easy as you say, everyone would do it. An engineer makes good money because the skill is marketable and not just anyone has the education and talent to do it. Competitive gaming isn't nearly as marketable (maybe you get some revenue from sponsorship and advertising?), so the market is *much* smaller, and anyone with 50 bucks and a computer can play Starcraft 2, so the barrier to entry is *much* lower than engineering. Consequently you have to be far more exceptional compared t
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Balance and stability is more important than cool and crazy for long term fun.
I agreed with everything you said up to this point. There are many thousands of cool and crazy mods for Doom, the game is one of the most unbalanced of any multi-player game, and yet, after over 16 years, I'm still playing it, there are lots of modders still producing content for it, new modders joining the "scene" and even new source-ports & editors for Doom being released...
I've played Doom competitively, but mostly for fun; Hell, I've been playing "online" since before the Internet was available
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A) Stop being a small mined condescending jerk.
Seriously, it's people like you that give all other gamers a bad reputation as anti social pricks
B) Please use your Brain
They can add now official tournament options. How stupid do you have to be to not see that?
C) I don't give a fuck about whether or not you make money with the game.
I know 2 people that play in tournament, I am well aware of the community. Don't assume only YOU know about the community.
BOTH the people I know use a 1990 keyboard with built in p
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Of cours there holding back. They want it to be a larger professional activity. Blizzard want Monday Night StarCraft.
Because of that, everything need to be predictable and balanced. The whole article is about WHY they are holding back.
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It's not just you AC. The biggest regret of the thousands of dollars I've spent on gaming is the $60 I spent on SC2. Multi-player is just not fun. I think the problem is it's too complex and fast. For regular gamers, a game can be complex and slow (Master of Orion 2) or simple and fast (Team Fortress 2) but if it's both complex and fast paced it's more "work" than it is "game".