December 9th, 1998 - Impatience on battle.net, the Underused, Misunderstood Medic

The last couple of nights I've actually gotten back to playing some Brood War games in the beta. As usual, a couple of things set me off or got me thinkging. The first is just how impatient people seem to be in chat these days. It's more exaggerated in the beta chat, because there are SO few people in the beta channels lately, and it's very difficult to get a game (so I understand to an extent), but people seem to be extremely impatient. They're SO insistive about getting you to play a game with them that they get downright rude. Saying things like "No, I'm tired and about to go to sleep" or "We're talking about the really cool 2 hour hard-fought, very close game we just played" is all but pointless. Several people seem to be DEMANDING for a game, and just won't chill or wait. It's really irritating, especially as part of the beta is examination and reflection of things so that we testers can make thoughtful and insightful suggestions and comments on the game - some people don't seem to want to allow those of us who do sit and hash out things afterwards that responsibility, though.

My second random spewing of thought concerns the Medic. The Medic, pre-beta, was a very controversial, and much bitched about unit. "Why do the terrans only get 1 new combat unit?" "Why doesn't the medic have any attack" etc., etc., ad nauseum. The medic has also been tweaked or changed in almost every patch of the beta as well, resulting in widely different states of effectiveness in its healing ability. Blizzard has made an extremely good unit in the Medic, however, and I began to truly realize that tonight, when for the third game in a row (two BW games playing as Protoss, and one Vanilla SC game) I was MISSING medics. I really wanted medics, and couldn't stop thinking just how useful they'd be to me at several moments. While Optic flare is fun (and has some really effective tactical uses) it really quickly begins to suck when playing against a zerg who actually uses Queens and Defilers when you don't have medics.

I've actually gone to the extent to SCV-nap in a game against a Terran opponent (and yes, you actually CAN successfully mind control and get away with an SCV or drone in REAL games. I've done it several times - and no, I'm not going to tell you my technique. I'm still refining it and practicing, and I have to have SOME tricks of my own.) solely to tech up the small amount needed to produce medics. This is especially true as I have a tendency of playing against a couple of players who LOVE ghosts, and lockdown profusely.

So, the medic is what I consider a wonderful unit, well worth it's cost (which is cheap, really) simply based on the "how much I want this unit when I don't have it" factor. Naysayers, disbelievers, and non-special ability users . . . go back to your mindless swarms of hydralisks, mutalisks, marines, or Fastest-setting 4 gate zealot rushes, and leave the rest of us to enjoy the fun wars of frustration that good use of special abilities brings to tbe game.

December 9th, 1998 - Spoiled by Brood War, or "Why I'm not playing PGL Season 4"

Lots of people recently are talking about how SC is dying, how SC web sites are dying out . . . I'm not much concerned with that. Lots of other people have pointed out the long life that WarCraft 2 has had, that PGL Season 4 is StarCraft . . . all good points that SC is alive and well. But I have to tell you . . . boy are the naysayers, and those just beginning to get bored a bit with StarCraft, in for a surprise when Brood War hits shelves (and their CD-ROM drives).

Brood War has spoiled me. StarCraft (or Vanilla SC as I now refer to non-Brood War SC) is still fun . . . but Brood War is SO much more fun for me. A more interesting balance mix, even more powerful combined forces possibilities, new tactics and strategies, new means of annoying your opponent . . . and all in all, a new style or feel of play. Brood War makes me not really want to devote much time to Vanilla SC anymore. Smoke'n'MirrorZ and I had talked about signing up for PGL Season 4 as a team (I was upset with myself for about 3 weeks that I DIDN'T pop the $10 or so and sign up for season 3, as I KNOW I'd have at least made round 2). Smoke and I talked a bit the other night, and made a decision . . . we don't really WANT to play competetively with Vanilla SC, after being exposed to the Brood War beta. We'd much rather play Brood War - it's spoiled us, and there's just not as much attraction to putting effort into something like Vanilla SC when we've had a taste of something better - Brood War.

Now, I'm not saying that SC sucks or that it's not a great game or anything . . . but Brood War is simply BETTER. Civilization 2 was better than the original Civilization, and Brood War is an improvement upon a great game and a great concept in the same vein. It's spoiled me, and it's spoiled others as well, but this is a good thing, I think. If StarCraft is Vanilla SC, then Brood War is Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough SC. Finally, if PGL Season 5 has a Brood War team competition, you can count me there!

December 5th, 1998 - Decline of the Brood War beta, Irritation at People STILL Getting the Name Wrong

I really hate to continue to rant about the same topic, but the Brood War beta has just REALLY fallen into near abandonment. Even taking into account server splits, Smoke'n'MirrorZ reported to me that he was in the beta channel last night for over an hour and a half, and during that time, less than five people total had passed through. Sheesh, where's the fun, where's the activity . . . where the hell are the testers?

In the original StarCraft beta, while things tapered down after the first 2 or 3 weeks to a smaller core base of testers . . . there was still a good 10-30 people to be had online at almost any time of the day, 24/7. With the current state of the Brood War beta, one is lucky to find 5 people online at a given time, and especially any time other than late evening. When people do show up, there's a frantic scurry to try and get a game - any game - going. The beta isn't officially done yet . . . and Brood War isn't dead yet . . . but it may as well be, with all the activity the beta channel is seeing. I'm disgusted with this - the SC Beta channels were packed to the very minute that the Blizzard bigwigs appeared to shut down the beta. Again - WHERE ARE THE TESTERS?

Another thing that's been bugging me more and more of late, is that a large majority of people persist in referring to the expansion as "Brood Wars" - it it "Brood War" - singular, not plural. It has been such since it was announced MONTHS ago, and individuals as well as sites still persist in referring to it improperly. This may seem like nitpicking, and it is, but what really irks me is that major, respected SC/BW news and information sites, and their staff, still refer to it incorrectly. If you're on a bloody news site, which should be spreading correct information about the game - GET IT RIGHT ALREADY!

November 21st, 1998 - Brood War 1.05 beta patch, Decline of the BW Beta

First off, my thoughts on the 1.05 beta patch, and where I think things stand:

• Air is more reasonable, but not yet quite where it needs to be. Corsairs in groups of about 7+ unless outnumbered by greater resource amounts of Scouts or Battlecruisers dominate the air. Valkyries aren't quite where I think they ought to be yet. I honestly feel the valkyrie was almost a perfect unit, balance wise, in it's initial incarnation. I'd like to see it go back to 8 base damage, x2 upgrade multiplier, but retain the other changes (armor reduction for example). I think the best way to fix the Corsair, and its matchups with other units, it simply a slight reduction in fire rate. Perhaps a 10% increase in cooldown. Something close to that, at any rate. I'll be interested to see what Blizzard does to fix this.

• Zerg aren't quite where they need to be as far as unit production and expansion. In the current form, with the 300 mineral hatchery, this encourages zerg to expand/multi-hatch really fast, and a lot. I think the larvae spawn rate (20 second on normal speed, or 3 per minute on normal, compared to 15 seconds before, or 4 per minute (per hatchery) before) is about right, and the morph time for the hatchery is pretty much where it needs to be, but 300 is just too cheap. 350 or 325 would be about right, I think.

• A lot of people are still screaming for changes to the Vulture. I'm entirely with Blizzard on this one - it doesn't NEED it. Sheesh, these things absolutely RULED for a good portion of the SC beta, and the vultures themselves haven't been fundamentally changed much in all that time. I've been mass-vulture rushed more than once already in the Brood War beta (took me by surprise. Dammit.) and these things don't need any help. They've had their usefulness actually increased with Brood War - they don't need coddling and tweaking.

Other than those issues with Air balance and Zerg production/expansion, I think things are close to being balanced and done with Brood War. Sadly, the beta itself seems to have nearly died off. The last three days I've had huge troubles getting games and working to playtest stuff. The one night I was on and there were lots of other people there, massive, nasty server splits were plaguing us. The other two nights, and this morning as well, there just didn't seem to be hardly anyone on. It seems like people seem to have pronounced things dead and done with the advent of the Beta Tournament. While it may be a masterstroke for balance evaluation, and fun for those involved, I think that a lot of those not involved are using it as an excuse to call things done. It's very, very irritating. I remember at the end of the StarCraft beta, threre were lots of players around almost all the time, and the beta-1 channel was packed full the last night of the beta, up until the point where Bill Roper shut it down (I was one of many in there for the ending of the beta). The way things are right now in the beta, Blizzard could send it, and people might not know for a couple of hours. :( Sad, sad. I'm really disappointed in not having more activity and more endurance out of more testers this time around.

November 18th, 1998 - Childishness and egotism. Oh, and Balance issues.

Ahh, the battle.net forums. What a place of absolute chaos. I take stuff in the forums with a grain of salt when I check in on things there (I got sick of the ludicrous amount of inanity and flaming and pure unreasonable overreactions during the SC beta test, so I only skim them occasionally these days), and as I was looking over things this morning, I saw a thread with the first two posts by some of the "big names" of SC, [9]Agent911 and Annihilator-X17. The thread starts at http://www.battle.net/forums/starcraft-broodwar/posts/bd/23739.htm, and is a good reflection of one of my things I've commented on at my Rants page on Infoceptor: some of the "big name" players - guys who I will openly admit are better players than I am (I'm a good player, just not a GREAT player, like these guys are. They're on a different level than I am) - who cause me to have ZERO respect for them. In spite of their skills, the attitudes and behaviours of some (note - I say SOME here - there are a few of the big names that are cool people as well as good players, and I have TREMENDOUS respect for them) of the "big name" players is just ridiculous. They're childish, petty, bitchy, and they have all the charm of a condescending pre-teen. Now, I'll probably piss some people off with this rant, but oh well. I'm specifically NOT naming names one way or the other - if you want to be pissed at me, think about it and decide if you have reason to be or not.

November 16th, 1998 - Rants about the "Ultimate Patch" suggestions

Annihilator-X17 made a post on the Brood War Forum on battle.net he entitled "The Ultimate Patch" (check it out at http://www.battle.net/forums/starcraft-broodwar/posts/ao/21320.htm - my response is in the thread there as well). It's being posted as major "news" on many of the SC sites, and there's been some discussion about it, largely supporting it. I however, happen to disagree quite strongly with a great many of the changes he proposes. He was on the beta channel on battle.net, and it ended up being one of those great discussions where neither of us really changed each other's mind at all, but we bandied about all sorts of reasons and examples and suggestions.

The biggest two issues I see are:

• Goliaths are fine. They don't need to be changed at all. Making them any MORE useful will turn them into the "Terran Metal Hydralisk" - a multipurpose, all-in-one unit that can be mass produced and will rule by itself against everything except perhaps BCs and Carriers.

• The way to fix the current imbalances in the air units is to change the damage upgrade on Valkyries back to +2 per missile per upgrade level, and to make a slight reduction in Corsair fire rate. Annihilator-X17's suggestions (to fix one problem, of Corsairs seemingly ruling the skies over almost any other air unit) entail cost changes, armor changes, damage changes . . . far too much, I think, to fix ONE issue, which could be done as effectively, and much more easily, with ONE change - a tweak of Corsair fire rate.

I am also astounded by his regard of the Academy as an "off tech-tree building." He makes that claim on the basis that it doesn't lead to any higher technology or other structures. This is despite it being absolutely vital for the one upgrade that ANY marine user is insane not to research - the range upgrade, and that you need it for Comsats. It's also required for firebats and medics (and with medics, you're a fool not to research the other basic upgrade, stim packs).

November 14th, 1998 - Brood War beta 1.04 patch thoughts

Since Infoceptor still seems to be down, I thought I'd post some of my thoughts from early playtesting of the 1.04 beta patch here. If you haven't heard about the latest beta patch, here is a link to the latest PATCH.TXT from Blizzard. So, in no particular order, here are some of my thoughts about the latest beta patch:

• "It is now possible to build interceptors and scarabs when you have groups of them selected."
  This rocks. It's really, really handy when using grouped carriers (which should be always. A single carrier is a joke) and it can make the multiple-reaver drop more effective by reducing micromanaging on the reloading.

• All the air unit changes: Wow. I mean, just for the new Corsairs alone - WOW! I was really skeptical of changing the Corsair to explosive damage (and I'd suggested the corsair be upgraded to 6 base damage during the inital beta version - yay!), but the fire rate increase more than makes up for it. Corsairs are MORE effective against Mutalisks and Wraiths now, and even more surprisingly, can actually take down battlecruisers with enough numbers if they're upgraded (talking 12 bcs vs 12 corsairs here - if micromanaged properly, you can actually take down 3 or 4 of them before losing all of your corsairs. This is more or less resource equivalent). I'm loathe to admit it, and I may change my mind after more testing, but I think that Protoss air power may actually be TOO dominant right now.

• The Hatchery changes - Hrm. Cheaper hatches (back to 350), but slower larvae production. I think this will be one of the biggest complained/flamed about subjects, and I'm not sure how well it'll work out. Larvae spawn rate really has to be one of those things that Blizzard is VERY careful with, as small changes in this can move from equalizing their production rate with that of other races, to reducing zerg production so much that it casts them with a strong disadvantage.

• Dark Templar Speed Increase - Woohoo! While it's a crunch to get very many of these very early on, they're well worth it now. Faster than an unupgraded zealot, and do much more damage, plus their most popular feature, permanent cloaking. This made this unit even more fun for me. (evil grin)

• Multiple Medic Healing Restrictions - probably a wise change. As it was in 1.03, enough medics could make marines nigh-invulnerable to anything other than LARGE groups of most of the ground units in the game, as well as scouts, wraiths, and mutalisks.

• Optic Flare range upgrade - coolness. This special ability is just too fun, if nothing else for the annoyance factor (much less it's tactical uses). The reduction in cost for the Comsat is also a very welcome change for me. I suck at Terran as is, so everyhing I can have to see 'em coming is a help.