Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty

[Talz]

So, I'm curious as to whether anyone's been playing this game?

I was a big fan of the original growing up, and so it was inevitable that I'd end up getting the sequel eventually. I'm very pleased to announce that Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty is finally in my possession. The campaign seems pretty cool so far, although it's a bummer you can only play as Terran, minus a few Protoss missions in this installment. I'm sure the Zerg and Protoss expansions will be awesome though.

The real appeal of Starcraft has always been the online play though, and that seems to be no different this time around. I don't feel I'm ready to play competitively yet, and so I've just been doing some research as well as practicing against the computer so far. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go with Zerg, but that's not set in stone yet. I think I'm starting to slowly hammer out my build, but I need to improve on my late game tactics for certain.

Anyway, does anyone else play?

[Time Fighter]

I used to. I found the online play was absolutely terrible. If you want to play competitively, you need to turn Starcraft into a religion and become its zealot.

Starcraft pun, hurr hurr.

Anyway, I found some of the custom games amusing, and I liked the singleplayer (eventfully short as it was.)

[Talz]

What was it about the online play that turned you off?

[TheMammoth]

What was it about the online play that turned you off?

It is VERY hard because most players do nothing but play it online. There's a pretty steep online learning curve. I still find it all fun, and I play it off and on. But, it's a pretty rough start for newbies.

[Squee]

My boyfriend got it for Christmas, and he hasn't played it much. He was a huge fan of the original, but SC2 turned him off. I'm not sure why, though.

[Evilpigeon]

I loved the single player but it's a little archaic and it feels like they kept in a lot of elements that are bad from a desing point of view to maintain the competitive aspect of the original.

Things like they way you can't zoom out the camera very far and the ultra traditional, micromanagement intensive base building that acts as a ridiculously imposing skill barrier that most people aren't physically capable of overcoming. it ruins the multiplayer for me unfortunately.

[TheMammoth]

It's a strategy game for a reason. It tests your skills in management of your base as well as your army. I enjoy the hell out of it.

[Evilpigeon]

Oh yeah absolutely but what part of the word strategy means that to play efficiently at a top level need to be able to perfrom 200 actions per second? The whole point of strategy is that it's cerebral as opposed to physical and unfortuneately the game has a very high physical barrier to entry, you can be a far better strategist than your opponent but if he doubles your apm then he has a much better chance of winning because he'll simply out-spam and out-micro you.

I get that by playing your strategy game in real time physical limitations do come into play but good design limits the impact of it as much as possible. I think you'll agree that the best games of starcraft aren't the ones where someone wins by mindless spamming out units but is won by the player did something clever.

The zoomed in camera and the high maintenance base building are factors that favour the former style of gameplay and are kind of out moded really when there are examples of other games that have dealt with the same inherent rts issues much more effectively.

I'm not trying to argue starcraft is a bad game or that it isn't a great competitive game but I personally don't find it fun to play because of the design features that were kept in place as throwbacks to the original starcraft. I love watching competitive games however because once you're playing with people at similar levels of physical ability at the game you get back to the strategy elements that make it fun, plus it helps that there's a rough limit to the number of actions you actually need to perform per minute to run things optimally... Although the Berkley starcraft AI has shown that that limit is far far beyond human capabilities.

[Talz]

What I like about Starcraft is that it has an unlimited skill ceiling. As you say, not everyone can play it. It's an incredibly demanding game in which no one can truly master. The bottom line is it's just too hard for most people.

Actions per minute is a somewhat controversial topic. Low level players argue that high APM equals a good player, but the pros will tell you otherwise. There's definitely a correlation there, but the bottom line is that a solid strategy, unit composition, and sense of timing will trump APM every time. At least that's how it was in the original game. There's also a difference between having high APM and actually being able to utilize it properly. The vast majority of players with high APM actually only have a finite amount of actions that are actually of value.

Team Liquid is a great community for Starcraft players, and if you watch some of the casts, particularly Day[9] you can learn a lot. Makes the game a lot less intimidating I think.