You tell me an attack or general build. I do it and post the replays plus a small writeup if time/interest allows. I want to emphasize that it does not have to be good or even reasonable.
Why?
The story is, I've been off Starcraft for a while and I'd like to get properly into 1v1. Before that, I'd like to stretch my muscles a bit and destroy my (platinum) ladder rank, such that I stop wimping out and playing 4v4s instead.
Details
I'll generally pick entries in the order they're received, with a preference for Zerg (since they're my favourite race).
Replays
Test Game - Just played this game to check that my replay and linking works. Turns out, newbie tuesday attacks are effective. I'll add the rest of today's replays here, once there are some responses.
So, I've been stewing in rage for the last two days. I've been incredibly pumped for Civilization V, got my PC all up to spec, bought the deluxe edition, fired it up and... got slapped with a framerate varying between 30 and 5. And half the textured ripping up and flying all over the screen. I've been utterly convinced that the game was somehow broken, and drowning in a sea of hopelessness.
Turns out windows check for new drivers doesn't work, and I was 8 months behind. 300 mb update and a quick restart and all is good now. The moral of this story is don't be lazy, don't trust windows, check everything personally. Give your computer some love and it'll love you back. Had to get that off my chest.
Warning, the following is probably narcicistic drivel, at least until I get a few more followers.
Like so many other users of the internet, I often find some topic or another particularly noteworthy. I'll take my time to learn a bit about it, consider it, formulate an opinion, then try to share that opinion with others if the situation calls for it. I do this because I genuinely care about the topics, feel I have a good point to make, and feel that others would benefit from hearing about that point.
Believing myself to be a fairly normal person, I generally believe that others go through a similar process of formulating an opinion then sharing it. However, in the last few weeks, that belief has been shaken. After spending a few weeks active in the Starcraft II and Medal of Honor official forums, as well as several here on Giant Bomb, I've noticed a disturbingly low amount of apparent thought or effort in the majority of threads. For every legitimate, purposeful thread I see, there seem to be two more threads of pure garbage.
Now most people just dismiss that as being the nature of the internet, but I am loathe to do so. The internet is not some nebulous creature which produces all therein, but rather it is a collection of people. Every one of those garbage threads was created by a person. Every poorly written statement, regurgitated opinion, and hateful remark was created by a person. What I cannot understand, is who the hell these people are.
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Consider one comment pulled from over a hundred pulled from the news article Will There Be A Call Of Duty MMO?: "So the only reason there would ever be a Call Of Duty MMO is so Activision gets money? If so, it will be terrible." Who wrote this? Why did they write it? I would think it is fairly obvious that a two sentence statement containing neither facts nor an insightful conclusion is, in a word, pointless. Yet someone, somewhere, felt that was an important statement that needed to be shared with the world. In fact, the majority of commentors felt the same, for most of the comments are no more meaningful.
If I trawl through my memory for a person who would've made such a comment, I come up blank. I cannot remember befriending, consorting with, or even talking to a person who would've made such a pointless comment. I see two implications:
First, a large percentage of internet users today are children and/or a race of mole-people who are simply incapable of meaningful debate. This worries me, because I believe that I survived both my childhood and mole phases without descending into the idiocy needed to make these sorts of comments or think them worthwhilw.
Second, the veil of anonymity that strips away the Average Joe's sense of social responsibility somehow also strips away their appreciation of reason and intelllect. The implication is that the average person does not inherently appreciate reason or intellect in daily life, but is only forced to by societal responsibility.
Neither of these implications bode well with me. I fear for the future.
So..... blogging. I guess I'm a member of web 2.0 now? Joy ensues. Anyways, for lack of a better topic, I've turned to starcraft. And for lack of detailed knowledge about starcraft, I've turned to some speculation on what exactly is up with starcraft. Why it's popular, why its high-skill scene is so large, and what precicely holds many players back.
To be more clear, I'm explaining why starcraft has all these traits compared to other entries in the RTS genre. The way I see it, starcraft is all about speed. APM, build ques, micro-management, these are all the defining traits of the "pro" starcraft player. Other RTSes focus on more strategic skills. What units do you build? Where should you position them? What support should you have on call? Other RTSes provide you with a scenario, and you have to develop, test, and implement a strategy to overcome it. Starcraft is different. Positioning doesn't matter all that much, units matter only insofar as you're willing to micromanage them, complicated unit balances give way to "build a bunch of these guys, and a few of these other guys." In the end, the winner in a game of starcraft is simply the person who builds more faster, and can find the time to manage those units.
Compared to other RTSes, starcraft seems shallow. There aren't many crazy vision and cover systems in place, there aren't a bunch of crazy unit grouping bonuses, or anything like that. In the long run, I think this works in starcraft's favour. In a slow, complicated RTS, theres only so much to learn. There may be a lot of buttons, but once you learn what they all do, and you press them, your pretty much done. Once you've done some memorization and come up with a few strategies, you are as good at the game as you will ever be. In starcraft, however, your ability is limited only by the speed at which you can work . As such, you can ALWAYS become better at the game, meaning the satisfaction of playing never stops, which is why the pros can keep on pro-ing.
Unfortunately, speed isn't something a new player can learn. They can learn strategies, they can learn what he buttons do, but nothing will improve a new players speed except practice. Since speed is so vital to success in starcraft, it follows that the floors of battle.net will forever be washed with the tears of new players. I believe this helplessness is what drives away all but the most determined newbies. I think starcraft has a lot to offer is you stick around, but I can understand why many people can't take the pain.
So... yeah maybe that made sense. Maybe theres an ingenious kernel of truth in what I just wrote? I leave it to the boundless knowledge hatred, and probable obliviousness of the internet to decide. Have at it.
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