As you are all no doubt aware, online multiplayer games are filled with trash talk. From Doom to Counterstrike to Halo I’ve had a host of uncreative insults hurled at me. Starcraft II, however, is surprisingly cordial. The vast majority of the matches I’ve played have started with a “gl hf” and ended with a “gg”. I mean, I don’t really wish my opponent good luck. They can have fun, though, as long as they enjoy losing. But I’ll say it anyway, because there’s something so wonderfully formal, almost ritualized about the practice. Like a duel.
I thought maybe I could explain this by the pace of the game. Who has time to make conjecture about their opponent’s sexuality when they need to be topping 100 actions per minute? But if that was the reason wouldn’t the notoriously obnoxious DOTA community be better than it is? It might have something to do with the game’s popularity and long history in South Korea.
After the jump: the proper way to bm.
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I have I confession. I’m a turn based strategy gamer. Going back to The Ancient Art of War (1984) I’ve obsessively played most of the non-grognard computer turn based strategy and tactical games. Warlords, Sword of Aragorn, Master of Magic, Civilization, Master of Orion, you name it. Even more perverse, I spent an inordinate amount of time playing clunky multiplayer turn based strategy games. I used to run an online competitive ladder for Warlords 3 — not the Battlecry RTS nonsense, the real one from back in the late nineties.
Sure, I also played all the big RTS games, but the multiplayer never clicked for me. It all felt too arbitrary and chaotic, I felt hampered by not being able to carefully consider my actions. I knew I was missing something, but it wasn’t until I forced myself to play Starcraft II for a few weeks that it all fell into pace.
After the jump, what I was missing all these years.
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Blizzard knows exactly how bad you are at Starcraft II.
In the deepest darkest depths of Battle.net there’s a single number which says precisely how well you play the game. This number (called match making rating or MMR) goes up when you win and down when you lose and it reveals exactly how you match up against every other player in the world. MMR is the cold hard truth. Blizzard is never, ever going to let you see it.
After the jump, what Blizzard will let you see. Continue reading →
The Starcarft II ladder is the perfect home for what I’m going to call the casual hardcore gamer. Those of us who have an obsessive competitive streak but are also saddled with bothersome responsibilities like work. And children. Let me tell you, children will wreak havoc on your gaming time. That precious “single sitting” indie game is going to take you two weeks to finish at best. That 40+ hour eastern european RPG is good for a season, if you even manage to finish it. And you can forget about MMOs unless you want a visit from child services.
But Starcraft II? In an hour or so you can play all the daily Starcraft II a normal man can manage.
After the jump, a normal man tries to manage. Continue reading →
