Difference between revisions of "Starcraft II"

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[[File:starcraftlogo.jpg|thumb|border|right|middle|Starcraft II]]
 
'''Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty''' is a real-time strategy game developed and published by [[Blizzard Entertainment]]. <ref> Blizzard Entertainment. [http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/sc2/ Blizzard Entertainment: StarCraft II]</ref> It is the sequel to the original Starcraft series and the first game of the Starcraft II trilogy and is available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.<ref> April 9th, 2010. Top News.  [http://topnews.us/content/216096-blizzard-entertainment-comes-starcraft-s-sequel Blizzard Entertainment Comes Up with Starcraft’s Sequel]</ref><ref>Wikipedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft_II:_Wings_of_Liberty</ref> Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm and Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void are the other two unreleased titles in the series. <ref> October 10, 2008. Shack News.  [http://www.shacknews.com/article/55267/starcraft-2-now-a-trilogy StarCraft 2 Now A Trilogy, Three Campaigns to Be Split Into Separate Games]</ref> The game sold over 1 million copies in the first 24 hours of release, and holds the record for fastest-selling strategy game of all time. <ref> August 3rd, 2010. Joystiq.  [http://www.joystiq.com/2010/08/03/starcraft-2-sells-1m-day-one-1-5m-in-first-48-hours-roughly-62/ StarCraft 2 sells 1m day-one, 1.5m in first 48 hours, roughly 620K in the US]</ref>
 
'''Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty''' is a real-time strategy game developed and published by [[Blizzard Entertainment]]. <ref> Blizzard Entertainment. [http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/sc2/ Blizzard Entertainment: StarCraft II]</ref> It is the sequel to the original Starcraft series and the first game of the Starcraft II trilogy and is available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.<ref> April 9th, 2010. Top News.  [http://topnews.us/content/216096-blizzard-entertainment-comes-starcraft-s-sequel Blizzard Entertainment Comes Up with Starcraft’s Sequel]</ref><ref>Wikipedia.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft_II:_Wings_of_Liberty</ref> Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm and Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void are the other two unreleased titles in the series. <ref> October 10, 2008. Shack News.  [http://www.shacknews.com/article/55267/starcraft-2-now-a-trilogy StarCraft 2 Now A Trilogy, Three Campaigns to Be Split Into Separate Games]</ref> The game sold over 1 million copies in the first 24 hours of release, and holds the record for fastest-selling strategy game of all time. <ref> August 3rd, 2010. Joystiq.  [http://www.joystiq.com/2010/08/03/starcraft-2-sells-1m-day-one-1-5m-in-first-48-hours-roughly-62/ StarCraft 2 sells 1m day-one, 1.5m in first 48 hours, roughly 620K in the US]</ref>
  

Revision as of 02:45, 12 December 2012

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty is a real-time strategy game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. [1] It is the sequel to the original Starcraft series and the first game of the Starcraft II trilogy and is available for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X.[2][3] Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm and Starcraft II: Legacy of the Void are the other two unreleased titles in the series. [4] The game sold over 1 million copies in the first 24 hours of release, and holds the record for fastest-selling strategy game of all time. [5]

Just like in the original Starcraft, players must collect resources, build structures, and train units with which to crush their opponents. [6] Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty features a campaign (single player) mode, online multiplayer, and an editor for custom map makers. The game has received high praise from critics and players alike and is currently considered one of the most popular Electronic Sports ("e-sport") titles in the world. [7] There has also been harsh criticism of the game as well as a number of ethical issues surrounding piracy and other forms of misuse of the software.

As of November 28, 2012, Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm is in closed beta and is slated for release on March 12, 2013.[8][9]

Campaign

Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty's single player campaign follows protagonist Jim Raynor in his battle to save humanity from the tyranny of Arcturus Mengsk, the recent Zerg invasion led by the Queen of Blades (which players will remember from the prior games), and the mysterious evil threat of Protoss-Zerg hybrids whose intentions are still unknown. The campaign features 29 missions, all with unique features and objectives for the player to complete.[10] Although the campaign larger focuses on the Terran's struggle (players play as Terran), the game does feature a handful of Protoss missions. Players are introduced to a number of new characters who play a role in the storyline as well as returning characters that veterans of the original game will remember. Players receive currency (credits) for completing missions and bonuses for completing them in special (often more difficult) ways, with which they may spend on upgrades to existing units or mercenaries to aid them in subsequent missions.[10] The single player features 4 difficulty modes: Casual, Normal, Hard, Brutal. [10]

Gameplay

A terran base at the beginning of a game.
Much like in other military RTS titles, gameplay in Starcraft II is focused primarily on military strategy, understanding of game mechanics, and precise unit control. The very best players are those who excel at all three of these skills.

There are many important aspects to successful gameplay in Starcraft II, several of which are listed below.

Macro

Short for "macromanagement", "macro" is a term that refers in context to the practice of managing the larger-scale aspects of the game. Grand military strategy, endgame goals, large-scale unit movements, and surveilling the opponent to reveal their own strategy are practices that fall under the umbrella of "macro". The idea of macro is that it covers overarching strategy rather than the specifics of a small battle, or the usage of a single unit, which is considered "micro" (see below). The harvesting of resources and management of the player's "economy" is a critical aspect of macro.

Players start out with a central command structure (Command Center for Terran, Hatchery for Zerg, Nexus for Protoss) and a small group of harvesting units and must expand their presence by gathering "minerals" and "vespene gas". Building structures and training additional units costs one or both of these resources. Players must also obtain supply in order to be able to support more units and trying to create more units without enough supply is known as a "supply block" within the community. Creating units, buildings, and supply as well as minimizing the idling time of harvesting units and structure build queues is known as "Macro" and is the primary indicator of a good player. [11]

Micro

Short for "micromanagement", "micro" is a game term that refers in context to the ability to control and optimize game actions on a very small scale. While macro consists of controlling the match as a whole, effective micro consists mainly of actively reducing the amount of time spent on common actions, positioning and placing units to be most effective in combat, and timing and targeting units' abilities optimally.

Another primary aspect of micro is the ability to optimize the placement and effectiveness of units. Many units in Starcraft II have abilities that can turn the tide of a battle if used correctly. Being able to identify both the best moment for and best use of a certain ability is integral to effective micro. Similarly, the placement of units within a formation can entirely affect the outcome of a skirmish. For example, ranged units in Starcraft II are often fragile, but can be placed behind the typically more robust melee units, allowing them to engage targets without being attacked themselves. Additionally, effectively moving units into a wider or more spread formation can allow them to avoid large area-of-effect attacks or surround an enemy force. Because skirmishes in Starcraft II are typically over in a matter of seconds, doing this quickly and correctly is very challenging. [11]

Strategy

Strategy plays a role as well in Starcraft II. Scouting what your opponent is doing, creating units that are effective against their unit composition, baiting him/her out of position, hiding important tech, expanding to additional resources quickly, or sacrificing tech/economy for an all-or-nothing push are all examples of strategy. Many strategies focus on a quick and heavy investment in tech, economy, or units (in some cases 2 of the 3 but never all). Maps often play a role in deciding what strategy to use. Features like the placement of cliffs, wideness of ramps, distance from opponent, amount of airspace, and number of paths to your opponent should all be considered. Some strategies are also better suited towards a particular player. For instance, player's with good Micro may favor technical "All-Ins" where success is solely based upon unit control and execution. Due to the amount of units, the array of maps (which are ever-changing), and the 9 possible racial match-ups, understanding Starcraft II strategy takes problem solving, critical thinking, and many logged games of experience.

APM (Actions Per Minute)

A key measure of a player's skill is the amount of actions (clicks, keypresses, etc.) they make in a minute, known as APM (Actions Per Minute). Players skilled at micro seek in part to increase their APM by cutting out as much of the time involved in an "action" as possible. [12]

Reducing the amount of time a player spends performing actions such as selecting units, pressing buttons, and moving the game camera is a primary aspect of micro. The theory is that, by reducing the amount of time spent on such actions, the player will have more time to invest in productive tasks and is able to respond more quickly to threats. For example, each action, unit skill, or building from the build menu is presented in a grid in the corner of the screen. New players typically move the mouse to the appropriate button to select it, but each button has a specific "hotkey" which is unique to it that can be pressed in lieu of manual selection. Skilled players typically memorize these hotkeys to speed up the rate at which they can perform tasks. [13]

E-Sport

Crowd of the 2010 GSL Finals.
Designed from the ground up for the purpose of being played professionally, Starcraft II is one of the most popular e-sports in the world. Garnering support from it's predecessor's fanbase (Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood War), which was only hugely popular in South Korea and mildly so elsewhere, Starcraft II has found much more success in Europe and the Americas. [14] Tournaments (both offline and online) are featured everyday with major tournaments boasting prize pools of $150,000+. [15] Currently, the most prestigious and lucrative tournament is the GSL (Global Starcraft II League), although other big-name leagues have adopted the game since it's release, specifically in the West. MLG (Major League Gaming), ESL, DreamHack, IEM, IPL and others are among these. [15]

The success of Starcraft II as an e-sport can be attributed to both the developers and it's community. Games are viewable by spectators live without affecting the players and the feature-rich interface makes knowing what is happening transparent. Statistics such as the players' harvester count, supply count, current income, units lost, current production, APM (Actions Per Minute) are all available to casters during the game via tabs. Map vision may be restricted to one player or both, and the casters camera may be synced with a player's to deliver the game from that player's viewpoint.

Starcraft II's community, which largely clusters around Team Liquid [16], is supportive of the game's longevity and further success in the e-sport scene in a number of ways. Fans from "newbs" to pros discuss strategy and competitions, watch live streams of players or tournaments, and form groups for online play. There is also a dedicated map-making community that makes use of the editor to make fun custom games, and/or serious melee maps for possible tournament use. Starcraft II's fanbase has proven loyal since the release in 2010 and the game observability has allowed casual or former players to enjoy watching even if they themselves do not intend to play at a high level. [17]

Criticism

Despite a hugely successful launch in all regions, Starcraft II has suffered criticisms ranging from it's "newb-friendly" interface to it's online-only playability. [18]

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime & SC2 Lead Designer Dustin Browder watching a live disconnect during the GSTL Finals amongst 1000s of angry fans.

DRM

Online-only playability, has received harsh criticism from players, especially from those living in areas where internet access is not consistent and from fans of the original Starcraft which had LAN support. [19] The latter has been the cause of several controversial games where a player has disconnected from the Battle.net service during a high-stake game of a live tournament. [20] This was not a problem with the LAN-supported Starcraft and Starcraft: Brood War. In response to the backlash, Blizzard has responded by chalking it's refusal to implement LAN support as a safeguard against piracy. [21]

Improved AI

Other criticisms of the game stem largely from a select group of original Starcraft fans claiming that the game's improved AI and user interface allows for lower-skilled players to perform better than they should. Professionals of the original game who are now transitioning to Starcraft II believe the game's simple control scheme has made the multitasking and hand speed less important and has as a result, lowered the skill ceiling of the game. [22]

Professional South Korean Gaming Community

After its release, many Southern Korean teams chose not to migrate over to Starcraft II due to criticisms over Starcraft II not having adequate game mechanics. Mechanics that originally posed challenge to gamers in Starcraft Brood Wars were no longer present in Starcraft II. Professioanl South Korean gaming communities also criticized the Starcraft II of being immature and full of vulgar. [23]

Ethical Issues

Piracy

In November 2010, Starcraft II set the piracy record with 2.3 million illegal downloads. With the popularity of the game, and the amount of people on the internet, it seems inevitable that the game will be downloaded illegally, making piracy a significant issue.[24] Blizzard has combated pirates, albeit at the expense of it's legitimate player-base, by making the game require users to be online and authenticated by Battle.net servers. [25]

Addiction

Addiction represents a concern for real time strategy cames such as Starcraft II. According to a 2010 survey by the National Information Society Agency about 14% of Koreans ages 9 to 12 suffer from Internet and gaming addictions. Professional players such as MarineKing and MVP play on average 12 to 14 hours per day with only breaks to use the restroom, eat a quick snack, and sleeping. Players who become addicted develop bad habits of ignoring their surroundings as it is just the player and their digital world in Starcraft II. There are some extreme cases where players have died from days without rest mainly in South Korea where gaming is multi-billion dollar industry [26].

Cheating

Like most games, Starcraft II has a small issue of cheating. Because the game requires authentication through the Battle.net servers, cheating can only be done via scripts and alterations to the game client that go unnoticed when the game is launched. While cheating has not been a rampant issue for Starcraft II, Blizzard has taken a firm stance against it and routinely bans the accounts associated with such behavior. [27]

Smurfing & Win-Trading

Smurfing (creating accounts for the purpose of playing at a matchmaking rating below a player's capability to crush lesser players) is one of the biggest issues for Starcraft II, specifically for lower level players. Several of the grandmaster and master level players have purchased secondary accounts with which they purposely throw games in order to land a lower MMR (matchmaking rating). Blizzard has made statements claiming they do not support smurfing, win-trading or any behavior where games are purposely lost in order to thwart the matchmaking system. [28]

Win-trading refers to the behavior of using accounts to elevate the MMR of a particular account. It is done by fixing the time when two accounts enter matchmaking so that they are matched and quitting with one of the accounts to increase the MMR of the other. [29]

See Also

References

  1. Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard Entertainment: StarCraft II
  2. April 9th, 2010. Top News. Blizzard Entertainment Comes Up with Starcraft’s Sequel
  3. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft_II:_Wings_of_Liberty
  4. October 10, 2008. Shack News. StarCraft 2 Now A Trilogy, Three Campaigns to Be Split Into Separate Games
  5. August 3rd, 2010. Joystiq. StarCraft 2 sells 1m day-one, 1.5m in first 48 hours, roughly 620K in the US
  6. Blizzard Entertainment. StarCraft II™ Beginner's Guide
  7. March 4th, 2011. Gamespot. Starcraft II: The making of an e-sport
  8. Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm Beta Now Live!
  9. StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm release date announced
  10. 10.0 10.1 10.2 StarCraft II: Campaign
  11. 11.0 11.1 Starcraft 2 Strategy Guide For What Is Micro And Macro
  12. The StarCraft II Encyclopedia: APM
  13. BWChart Replay Analyser
  14. The StarCraft II Encyclopedia: South Korean SC2 Scene
  15. 15.0 15.1 The StarCraft II Encyclopedia: Premier Tournaments
  16. Team Liquid
  17. Team Liquid: Do people watch starcraft but don't play it?
  18. Starcraft 2: 'No chance' of LAN support
  19. LAN in Starcraft 2 Please Petition
  20. Prime wins 5-2 over StartaleQ in GSTL finals
  21. StarCraft II LAN Dropped Thanks to Piracy
  22. Bisu talks SC2: 'The easier controls make my multitasking less impactful'
  23. Brood War Veterans Dislike Starcraft 2
  24. StarCraft II sets piracy record with 15.77PB downloaded
  25. Blizzard combats piracy by cutting LAN support
  26. CNN: Gaming Reality
  27. Cheating in Starcraft II
  28. Blizzard takes action against Loss and Win Trading Accounts
  29. Win-trading in Starcraft II

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