[CubaLibre]

It's usually worth getting the game for free and cheating your way through the single player. Just to see who backstabs who and like, the crazy units you can get. And stuff. Anyway that's how I played the first Starcraft.
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[CubaLibre]

I can't play RTSes worth a good god damn.
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[CubaLibre]

Wow. Congratulations man.
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[CubaLibre]

I think it's telling that those same strategy buffs actually use that Sun Tzu nonsense and win actual strategy games, like e.g. the Total War series or Hearts of Iron. The reason you only play fighting games and Starcraft is because Starcraft is basically a fighting game.

EDIT: I don't mean to attach any positive or negative connotations to that, it's simply a statement of observed fact. It is the reason I can't play it for shit, though. I can't play fighters for shit either. They require the exact same kind of thinking and execution, both of which I tragically lack.
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[CubaLibre]

If they make World of Starcraft, I will probably play it. :(
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[CubaLibre]

haze that was a good post.

Another difference is that so much of Starcraft takes place behind the fog of war. Scouting and getting a picture of what your opponent is up to is a much larger portion of the game, and you spend a much larger proportion of time not knowing exactly what your enemy is doing. This happens in a certain sense in a fighting game as well, but the consequences are much more immediate and can be responded to more or less instantly. When you get beat in a fighting game, you can watch the guy dominating you moment by moment - you can see he's earned it. Often in Starcraft your opponent just seems to have forces that drift out of nowhere that seem perfectly suited to beating yours, and you're like, what the hell. Of course a high-level player, due to better play (more scouting) and better knowledge of available strategies (more accurate extrapolation from the scouting they do have) is not taken by surprise like that nearly as often. But to a beginner this can be a lot more disheartening.

Overall though, I still say that Starcraft has a lot more in common with Street Fighter than Total War.
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[CubaLibre]

Broco this is probably the millionth time I've mentioned them in this thread but try the Total War games (Rome at the earliest, don't go before that). Of course the campaign has a whole 4x overlay, but the battles themselves are pure RTS, no resource management, and they're much more about terrain, formation and tactical maneuver rather than pure micro. Online play is just the straight RTS part, so if you're looking for straight competition that's where you might want to go.
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[CubaLibre]

More than kinda. Blizzard's entire design strategy is to appropriate formulae and dedicate themselves to polishing it to a fine sheen. This means the quality of their games has much more to do with the underlying formula than whatever they pile on top.
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[CubaLibre]

I don't have a problem with people who like Starcraft. I also don't have a problem with the fact that Starcraft 2 is the same essential game (much more the same than even Warcraft 3) with some nicely polished bite-sized Starcraftian ideas. It's just, it's not new. Anyone who didn't like SC1 isn't going to like SC2 and anyone who did, will. I didn't, so much, except as a cool sci-fi experience I could cheat through. These days we have Youtube instead so I'm just watching a Let's Play of SC2 and getting about my personal maximum amount of enjoyment out of it.
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[CubaLibre]

Yes. It is polished and updated and superior. It is also the same basic game. You aren't saying anything different, but you are saying that for some reason I have to LOVE STARCRAFT 2 even if I didn't even particularly like Starcraft 1.
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[CubaLibre]

Of all the things Starcraft 2 does, inspiring awe is definitely not one of them.
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[CubaLibre]

Especially online, where there is no strategy element, and only the battles.
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[CubaLibre]

Yeah, Total War has no resource management during battle and your forces are just what they are, which I always thought was the defining feature of Myth. But then I haven't played it since I was a child. Men of War feels like that although you can buy units during play. Your money is just a pool that doesn't grow. So you still have a strictly limited amount of units, but you can buy different ones as the game progresses to respond to your needs.
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[CubaLibre]

[CubaLibre]

I thought Brutal Legend was already supposed to be a lot like Sacrifice (which I've never played). At least, that's what I heard everyone comparing it to.
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[CubaLibre]

From what I've seen, SC1 > SC2 is more like TF1 > Fortress Forever than TF1 > TF2. But either way, ninjafetus, you're only saying exactly what I've been saying, which is that it ultimately relies on the same basic formula and isn't going to change any minds. That's not a condemnation, just a fact.
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[CubaLibre]

[CubaLibre]

The Wing Commander series is notorious for that kind of stuff. WC3 had infinitely-spawning enemies on the Behemoth mission such that it was impossible to actually defend it (eventually, the enemies will destroy it), the unwinnable Earth invasion mission if you lose too many missions leading up to it (more infinite enemies), and the part where one of the Kilrathi (I can never remember their names) challenges you to a duel and your carrier jumps out and leaves you behind, rendering you stranded even if you win.
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[CubaLibre]

[CubaLibre]

Every high-level game I've ever seen with Battlecruisers has proven them to be ponderous, expensive, ineffective wastes of time and resources. Have lost people games, even, when invested into too heavily. A lot like real-life aircraft carriers.
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[CubaLibre]

From what I've seen, even in large games they're easily countered. Outranged by vikings, easy pickings for stalkers (especially with blink) or hydras. Carriers and broodlords have one distinct advantage: their attacks are themselves little units that really mess with AI. BCs do a lot of damage but it's not frontloaded; so while you're picking away at one unit at a time, ten stalkers have blinked underneath you and shot you simultaneously, cutting half your health in a millisecond. Next shot, you're dead. Also, the fact that they accrue energy even without the Yamato being researched leaves them extremely vulnerable to emp/feedback.

Keep in mind I don't actually play SC2, I just watch a lot of replays. But in high-level games BCs seem mostly a boondoggle. (Ultralisks too, for different reasons.)
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[CubaLibre]

Certainly broodlords aren't the same thing - nothing in SC2 is the same - but they're a big slow flying unit with a lot of HP that has high DPS over time. That's the only comparison I was trying to make.
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[CubaLibre]

Partially though for Terran that's a balance thing. It didn't used to be that way (you could build barracks before depot) and people whined about Reaper rushes, so.
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[CubaLibre]

Well ok, I'm not trying to make a moral judgment. Just saying that the very beginning of the Terran game is slightly more restricted than Z and P specifically in order to discourage reaper rushes.
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[CubaLibre]

I just watch Husky mostly. I know he's not the most "analytical" but the games are the same. I haven't seen a 6pool or a cannon rush in I dunno how long.
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