Was watching the (P)Kal vs (T) BByong[Kal] WCG VODs and saw a Command and Conquer 3 WCG vod in the related videos. I used to play this game so I figured I would see what top-level play looked like.
And woah. Ok, first of all even as someone who put a decent amount of time into the game.. I can just barely follow what is going on at all. Secondly.. Woah that is fast.
I mean, I always thought SC was a fast paced RTS.. because, honestly, it is. But the first half of that VOD has the players reaching their top-tier units by the 5 minute mark. That is really fast. The GG also seems to come from no-where. I am guessing once the GDI aircraft killed the Scrin Aircraft there is no hope of Scrin defending his airspace or something, but it seemed like both players just teched at breakneck speed, started to mass their most powerful unit, and then one randomly GGed.
Still, wow was that fast.
The second half the of the VOD has got to be a highlights reel, right? I mean stuff just seems to be happening out of nowhere. If this is a realtime recording of a game then CnC3 is about a thousand times faster than I recall it being.
So yea.. I recall there being a thread a while ago, some article about why SC is a better competitive game then WC3 due to it being a great spectator game (easy to watch). CnC3 has to take the cake for the most difficult to watch then, right?
I don't really participate in the GG.net vs TL.net rivalry. It is stupid, both sites are useful, yadda yadda. But a plea to their fucking frontpage editors: Stop getting such a hard on for putting the results of matches in your fucking headlines!
Really sucks to wake up and go check out my morning rotation of sites over coffee and have MSL semis spoiled for me before I can even look away.
Honestly though TL.net seems like the only site that really cares about giving at least a week lead-time before spoiling in front page articles. I have seen GG.net fuck me many times, SC2GG does it occasionally (usually in listing like 3 videos out of a bo5 in commentary), SCForAll also takes GG.net's "newspaper" approach.
I understand that there are different approaches to this. Newspapers don't wait 2 weeks to break results of football games; rather people get the paper to SEE those results. So is it wrong for me to hate on GG.net for adopting that model rather than TL.net's "we think our readers want to watch every game and not be spoiled" model?
Yes. Fuck them for this. T_T... Put it in the article, put the title as something like "Flash and ForGG show off! Results below!" or something. Just don't spoil it for me as punishment for daring to visit your page.
Had to point this out since I thought it was really well written and since it seemed like a mirror to my thought train on SC2. Really got me excited about the game at the end so if you are feeling down on SC2 this might be a good pickup.
Loving these SC2GG articles; they have some good writers. Now if only their IRC room was better mannered..
I have long been a fan of the chiptune/8-bit music scene. YMCK somehow stands out however; they are really perfecting a different sound than most chiptune artists and this has some possibility of breaking out beyond the super-subculture.
That and they are putting out the most stunning 8bit music videos I have ever seen. The video for 'Starlight' is absolutely breathtaking:
I just purchased their newest album, 'Family Genesis', and it is absolutely fantastic. One of my favorite tracks, which is the track that turned me on to them when I heard it at Muzak for Cybernetics, is Future Invasion. Click that title to sample it yourself, it is a good one.
If anyone knows any other great chiptune acts that would be a sin to pass over, please leave a comment. :D
Never, aka ForGG goes head to head against Shuttle, aka YoonJoong aka YNG (Your New God).
Plexa hits us up with an awesome preview of the matchup in [GOM] Are you EXCITED?, so be sure to check that out. His predictions come down to this: Othello is a Terran map in PvT, plain and simple. Katrina is still a heavily Protoss favored map despite the Flash build. So this set will be decided by the second game on Blue Storm.
This game starts out fairly standard with Shuttle and Never both getting a fastish expansion and not showing much aggression. Shuttle goes for a reaver/zealot drop harass and manages to take out a tank and a few SCVs, but that is all the damage he is able to do at this point.
Shuttle has his goons positioned in a partial contain as he claims his third. Never is able to force Shuttle's troops away to claim his third as well, to which Shuttle responds by taking the mineral only at 12.
At this point Never decides he has a window of opportunity and begins a solid push up against Shuttle, being very slow and cautious with plenty of turrets planted along the way. Shuttle meanwhile has laid down a huge number of gateways and appears to have cut probe production to try and muster a strong defense force before the slow push reaches sieging distance of his 3rd.
Just as Never engages Shuttle's third Shuttle rushes in with a surprising number of troops. He controls them excellently avoiding the mines with his zealots and getting them into the tank line quickly busting the push and coming out with a huge advantage.
Shuttle knows victory is within his grasp and presses into Never's 3rd. Tanks explode and goons turn to soup and it looks like Shuttle is going to show how manly he is by ending the game right away when some lucky satan mines rip up his goons and end the assault.
Never switches to defensive mode and returns to macroing while he claims the 9 o'clock mineral base. Meanwhile Shuttle attempts to take bottom right and 3 o'clock, but in both instances vultures squash the probes.
Never sends out a dropship loaded with two tanks and shows us why Othello has a 6-0 TvP record in this tournament by dropping one on the cliff overlooking Shuttle's natural and one overlooking Shuttle's 3rd. While Shuttle scrambles to deal with this he launches a surprisingly strong push up the center.
Shuttle appears to be cracking under the pressure as he tries to micro in three places at once. He postures his troops around the map to take out Never's expo at 9, but Never decides this is a fair trade as he rolls up to the entrance of Shuttle's natural.
Shuttle continues to stream reinforcements in one by one to die and finally GGs when he forces return and are reduced to blue goo by the sieging terran army.
Never 1 - 0 Shuttle in a disappointing display of play by Shuttle. I know he is capable of so much better.
Shuttle starts at the bottom and Never at the top. Shuttle immediately decides that a straight macro game against Never on this map is not in his best interests and sends a probe directly to Never's natural for a proxy. He lays down one proxy gate and engages in some really pimp probe micro delaying the barracks as long as possible and scoring one SCV kill.
Never meanwhile is walling in and spots the proxy before the first zealot comes out. His barracks being delayed is hurting him, however, as two zealots are wrecking havock on his barracks before his first marine pops out. Knowing the marine would spawn right beside the zealots and live a short painful life he cancels the marine causing Tasteless to proclaim "I don't understand this world anymore!", which gave me a great chuckle.
Never appears to be going straight for vultures, relying on SCV repair to hold the zealots at bay. Meanwhile Shuttle places another pylon and it is revealed he has a forge in his base. Just as the vultures begin popping out Shuttle places a cannon at his proxy to try to work on the wall.
Unfortunately one vulture can reach the cannon and works on it during its construction. In a tense moment the cannon finishes and manages to take out 2 vultures before finally being neutralized. Shuttle decides to back out and transition into a more standard game.
Shuttle claims his natural and third while macroing up and Never does the same thing; sending some vultures out to harass as well, but not accomplishing more than delaying Shuttle's 4th. Shuttle postures around the map uncomfortable in the knowledge that he is at base parity with a terran and perhaps aware that Never is busy securing his 4th as well.
Never pushes out with the intention of creating a siege location at the 'sweet spot' outside the small entrance to Shuttle's expansion. Things look really bad for our hero Shuttle as tank fire rains down ending the lives of innocent probes.
Shuttle makes a last attack at this position and has such a surprising number of troops that it causes Tasteless to exclaim "I don't understand this game anymore!!".
Shuttle rolls over Never's forces in a similar manner to Game 1, but this time as he pushes his advantage he micros perfectly. All the mines are cleared out by dragoons and zealots run directly into Never's insufficient tank line carving it to shreds.
Never types out visibly unhappy that he wasn't able to end the set at 2-0 and will now have to face the next great Protoss on Katrina. Woe is him.
Ahh Katrina a map that has built up so many memories in a such a short time. A topic of so much contention. It is widely regarded as being favored toward Protoss in PvT and Never knows it.
Never spawns at 12 and Shuttle at 3. Just as Tasteless recaps the OSL game where Flash proxied Stork it appears that Never is taking a page out of that same book, placing a proxy barracks on the highground near Shuttle's base. His placement is alarmingly lucky since he has not scouting Shuttle out yet, but Shuttle is also finally seeing some good luck as he decides to go straight for a 2 gate goon build rather then the 14 nex which would spell his doom.
Shuttle scouts out Never's base and knows something is up so he sends out his first zealot to investigate. This runs into a small force of 3 marines and an SCV which clean it up handidly. Never pulls some SCVs and launches his all-in assault on Shuttle's front door with about half a dozen marines and several SCVs trying to place a bunk.
Shuttle however already has 3 dragoons at this point is able to mop up the attack without a single loss. Never is in deep shit now as he floats his proxy barracks home and sets up a bunker for defense.
Shuttle launches his offensive now with 6 dragoons. They clean up the non-bunkered marines and then run past the bunker scoring a ton of SCV kills before being cleaned up. Never is frantically trying to keep things together as he expansion comes online and he pumps marines from 2 barracks.
Shuttle returns shortly with another force of dragoons now with range upgrade complete. Shuttle expertly positions these out of the range of the bunker and easily takes it down before Never can react with repair. Never tries to scare off the dragoons with his sizable marine force, but Shuttle simple goon dances back and forth easily reducing the marine force to nothing more then blood splatter, losing minimal dragoons himself.
Never knows the end is here for him and types out, GG.
Never 1 - 2 Shuttle. The hero protoss who clawed his way up from the 128 player level topples his seeded opponent and secures his spot in the semi finals.
Some good games
Edit: BTW I have been mostly posting this type of material in my blog, but I recently experimented with posting some battle reports in the Broodwar forum ( http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=74705 ). Wondering what the general opinion (especially from admins) about where this stuff belongs. Perhaps buried in the Tournament forum? I am not sure.
Also I am looking for feedback on my writing style. With this one I tried to do a more straight-up battle report then my previous Shuttle loveletterposts, but not as detailed and long as the Violet vs Shuttle live cast post. Let me know where you like it, what is most informative and entertaining.
This is just to air out my feelings on the MST1 final production quality. For info on the games and some battle reports check out this thread.
I thought Diggity's commenting was really great in this series. Very fast, informative, and quite insightful at times. It helped a lot to have him with another obs view pointing out things that were not on the screen since the GameFire obs was.. Well..
Here is the thing. I think I know what the GF obs was going for: don't jump around too much to make people nauseous and keep your eye on the battles. But I really felt like I needed to use my imagination to describe the huge portions that Diggity was describing and the GF obs was missing. We never got shots of the bases after very early game, drops were routinely missed, large multi-front battles usually only offered us a glimpse of a single front, and in general I felt very annoyed at the camera work. I hate to bad-talk a guy who Diggity said was taking time away from his family, helping support the event, and also new to StarCraft.. But well. The fact that he is new to the game shows. I hope he gains some experience and any future events he may do a better job.
My next complaint is about the extra obs. While the lag problem in the first game mostly didn't show up again I felt there were many times the obs were making annoying comments showing up on the main screen. The brief stint that the GF obs did not have DND mode turned also seemed incredibly unprofessional.
And finally the whole production being done by GameFire seemed odd in the first place. As you can see from their website or from the FPS-centric intro they had (which was HORRIBLY normalized sound-wise) they just didn't seem like StarCraft was on the radar for them. I don't know who would have been better off running the streams.. Oh right, TL.net! But TL.net was not participating in the Multi-Site-Tour thing. Kind of sad.
But, thankfully the games were great and Diggity was a pretty damned competent caster. It kind of surprised me since some of his previous work I had heard (such as the Ascension series) I really didn't care for. I guess the guy is putting a lot of effort into his craft and it is showing through... So if you read this Diggity: Keep up the hard work!
I want to call this an epic game, but it seems like Shuttle's spirit was totally broken after Boxer took out his main. I mean I can't blame him for being a little down at first, but shouldn't the realization that he still is really in the game be a boost of motivation needed to pull around the comeback?
:| Nothing but goons zealots and templars for so long. Sooooo many needless deaths to mines due to the lack of obs. Totally giving up on the whole 'claim new expos' thing.
And that GG. That was the GG from someone broken who just wants to stop playing; not from someone who actually saw defeat looming. I can only imagine what thoughts were going through his head.. Things like "everyone is laughing at me" and "I can never beat Boxer" and "people think I am just dragging it out".
It isn't even like Boxer was playing fantastic either. Just.. I dunno, the whole second half of game I felt like Shuttle had this mental block. Like he just never believed he could defeat the legendary Boxer.
Shuttle broke my heart this game. I really hope he gets the spring back in his step for the GomTV Classic.. If he drops out of that in the same fashion I don't know what I would do.
Coworker pointed this out to me today. Go ahead an weigh in if you have a SA forum account, but before I link I want to please make this request:
Lets act as cool-headed ambassadors and not as flaming faggots on this one? I think this guy just really doesn't "get it" and wants to; this is an opportunity to bring more people into the fold.
Most of the posts have already pointed out that StarCraft is pretty close to perfectly balanced (at pro level, which is the only level that matters, all three races still trade top spots season to season). Some of the posts have emphasized that StarCraft actually has a pretty deep strategic element to it (which is why the landscape of strategies used in profession play is still shifting after 10 years).
No one has touched on one of the key reasons I feel StarCraft is still popular; why it is one of the only RTS games viable for competitive play. The high skill ceiling brought on by the enormous mechanical demands, aka "Rewarding High APM".
Limited selection size and lack of multiple base selection actually help build a higher skill ceiling due to the mechanical skill required to do good micro and macro with the user interface restrictions. The lack of complex waypointing lends to this as well.
Replies who mention 'click fest' are actually hitting the mark without realizing it.. This is a good thing. 'Click fest' is pretty much just a derogatory way to say that the game rewards a high APM (actions per minute) and this is an essential feature of any RTS.
Rewarding high APM is an essential feature on an RTS because RTS stands for Real TimeStrategy game. Being real time it becomes impossible to separate out the speed at which you do things from how well you do: the faster the better, until you reach the mechanical ceiling. The mechanical ceiling is the speed at which additional actions are no longer necessary; the point where you are playing a mechanically perfect game.
In StarCraft that ceiling is beyond the realm of human hand speed. A bot is currently being developed which achieves more then 5000APM doing things like optimizing worker gather patterns and micro-dancing units individually. The fastest players in the world top out at about 500APM bursts; the average for progamers is in the 300APM range.
By having such a high mechanical ceiling StarCraft is able to combine the physical/mental demands of playing fast with the mental demands of knowing the strategy, timing, multi-tasking, etc.
I suggest that anyone who is interested in competitive play that emphasizes ONLY strategy should look into playing turn based games. I mean this without a hint a of disdain: RTS games, by their very nature either will reward speed as well as strategy or they will have low skill ceilings and fail to be viable as a competitive game.
There is a much larger community of people playing Go or Chess then there is people playing StarCraft. I think this is because it is more common for people to want to focus on strategy then speed. So this is great! And there are games for you if you fit this category!
Just understand that if an RTS fails to reward mechanical skills this will result in the skill ceiling being lower and the game being less viable for competitive play. I don't really have any problem with this as again, I think is a small subset of the game-playing population that cares about competitive play.
So for everyone who doesn't really care about competitive play there are ton of fantastic games for you: Supreme Commander, CnC3, Sins of a Solar Empire, etc. I have played these as well and in many ways they are more fun then StarCraft is.
But the reason StarCraft still is around with such a large strong community is because this community enjoys competitive play and StarCraft is able to provide the best platform for competitive RTS play that exists today.
Best topic on SC2 ever. Seriously, the 'mutant larva', the new gas mechanics, the force-field ability, etc etc.. I really feel like Blizzard is going to be able pulling off leaving MBS in while still providing macro mechanisms to allow the ultra-high skill ceiling we currently have.
I just found myself going into a 10 minute joy-rant about it to one of my coworkers so.. Yea. Excitement renewed.
