The following is my shameless attempt of getting people to play Starcraft. A little shame I guess... Ill pretend its part of an attempt to get people to explore new games. Someone should write a LoL introduction or a variety of guides or a SSBM, etc. How to Learn Starcraft II: The purpose of this write-up is to act as a general guide and resource list for people who are interested in getting into Starcraft II. Before we begin, I highly recommend beginning the Starcraft II download: https://us.battle.net/account/activation/landing.html?product=S2&trial and watching the opening cinematic: https://youtube/watch?v=MVbeoSPqRs4 Starcraft II, despite not being completely free, has a starter edition which is completely free. It gives you access to the first five missions of the single player campaign, all of the arcade (more on that later), all three races, and playing with friends (whom you can find by asking on the Harvard Starcraft group) who have bought Starcraft lets you play all of the multiplayer options. If playing around a little on the starter edition whets your appetite, then the two parts of the current Starcraft II game are available for $19.99 or cheaper. What is Starcraft II? Starcraft II, at heart, is a Real Time Strategy (RTS) game. (The following is a link to an overview that is not necessary to read: wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/StarCraft). Real Time Strategy games are, according to Wikipedia and totally not something I wrongly attributed to Wikipedia, “totally badass and worth playing.” They usually revolve around resource and army management and killing your enemy in the most satisfying ways possible. In other words, you, as supreme dictator of the universe (not exactly the universe, there’s this whole story line involving plot twists (maybe) and badass cinematics), train and command an army which you use to crush other people who are training and commanding armies. Why You Should Play Starcraft I shouldn’t need to convince anyone to play Starcraft, but it is a non-negligible time commitment to learn and play Starcraft so I can see why some people might need a couple of reasons. 1.) Starcraft is amazing. It’s fun. It’s nontrivial. It’s competitive. It has variety. Its campaign is fun and original. It has an amazing community. You get to command armies, launch nukes (at teammates if you prefer), build giant warships, cleanse planets, play team games, build buildings in opponents’ bases, win by solely building one type of unit, win by not building any attacking units, plant mines, hide bombs underground, make units in enemies’ bases, and have fun. 2.) Starcraft’s engine is actually amazing. The arcade, which is free to try out in the starter edition, is a place for people to show off games that they have created with the Starcraft II engine. Just how powerful is the Starcraft II engine? The engine lets people change perspectives from the typical top down to... Anything. In addition to practically total control of character models, people can write scripts and build maps and mods. As a result people have created third person Mario Kart-like games (kotaku/5533956/starcraft-ii-does-bullet-hell-shooters-too), first person Doom-like games (https://youtube/watch?v=YPc3C-Ibi4Q), arcade Touhou bullethell-like games (kotaku/5533956/starcraft-ii-does-bullet-hell-shooters-too), MOBAs (battleforskyfortress/), tower defense games, and others. In fact, DotA has its origins in Starcraft not Warcraft III (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_the_Ancients). That means you can thank Starcraft for DotA and its various clones (Heroes of the Storm, League of Legends, DotA II, Neroes of Newerth, Smite…). There are hundreds and hundreds of these games and they are all free to play. 3.) Starcraft and its predecessor, Starcraft II, essentially were the reason why eSports is so large today. This may offend Warcraft III, Supreme Commander, LoL, and MLG fans, but Starcraft is historically, undeniably the birthplace of gaming. There are pages to be filled about the history, but large eSports tournaments, programing teams, even the entire genre of MOBAs originate from Starcraft. Why not try out the game that captured an entire country’s attention? 4.) Just go play Starcraft. How To Start Starcraft seems like a very overwhelming game. People that watch experienced players playare often intimidated. However, in all honesty, Starcraft isn’t actually that complicated. Hard to be pro at the game, yes (which is why the game seems so overwhelming), but not that hard to learn. What follows is my recommendation for how to get into the game (not arcade). 1.) The User Interface and Basic Controls: Starcraft has a simple, probably 20 minute tutorial that introduces brand new players to the simplest mechanics (how to select units, how to move units, how to make units) and a brief guide to the bare necessities (what minerals are, what supply is). This also introduces you to the game client. The following is a similar comprehensive guide to introductory starcraft. Lesson 3 on commands is helpful to read, if you are interested in it (teamliquid.net/forum/sc2-strategy/200836-beginners-guide-to-multiplayer-starcraft-2). 2.) Learn the Units and Buildings: Starcraft is broken down into three races. The are many similarities between the races, but there are also some major differences. All of the races have a “tech tree.” This means that you have to build some basic buildings before you can build more advanced buildings. More advanced buildings let you build more advanced units. For instance, a Terran Command Center lets you build SCVs. SCVs are units that build other buildings. Having an SCV and a Command Center lets you build a supply depot, etc. Learn the units. For instance: The marine is the basic unit of the Terrans. It is a ranged, ground unit that can attack both air and ground units. It has a couple of abilities that can be researched in the game. Once you learn these details, you can let your imagination run wild. What army composition seems best? Some units are fast, some units are slow. If you build a slow army, then what’s your greatest weakness? There are several resources to learn these things. 1.) The Starcraft client has a pretty good help section with basic information about each unit and the three races’ tech trees. It tells you what you might need to build a marine (a Barracks), and what a marine is good against (everything[source required]), and what a marine is bad against (banelings). 2.) The Blizzard Game Guide (us.battle.net/sc2/en/game/) has overviews of the three races, including plot details for the campaign and introductions to various aspects of the Starcraft lore. (Starcraft also has some of the best cinematics, art, and plot in the entire industry. It has spawned dozens of books, comic books, animated series, and comics). 3.) Liquipedia (wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Main_Page) is an online wiki dedicated to 4 games, including Starcraft. Here you can find an amazing wealth of detail (including patch notes, tournament results, unit DPS, strategy guides, campaign notes, glitches, bugs, professional player information, professional team information, and more). 4.) Play some games against the very easy AI. Build all of the units, check out the UI, etc. As you feel more confident in your abilities, ratchet up the difficulty. The built in Starcraft AI is pretty good for an RTS, even if it begins to cheat on cheater mode. 5.) Watch some TotalBiscuit (https://youtube/user/TotalBiscuit/videos) or other competitive play. I recommend TotalBiscuit because he won the Blizzcon 2010 award for casting. He tries to make his casting suitable for everyone, not just seasoned players. Getting used to the units, buildings, and the interface is pretty important. These are the building blocks of the game. With these tools you can begin to let your imagination run wild. As a side note, when starting out, I would recommend Terran or Protoss as they have less “nuance” than Zerg. 3.) Learn Unit – Unit interaction People talk about how one unit might “counter” another. For instance, if he has units that don’t shoot up, I can build air units that shoot down and kill his units. Unit – Unit interactions can be tested in the Arcade Game: Unit_Test_Map where you can build any unit (with super-fast build time) and test their abilities and interactions. Alternatively, you can test in game, rinse and repeat. You can find “counter” lists on the internet as well, to give you a general idea of how units interact. Watching how pros play can also help. 4.) Hotkeys While not necessarily necessary to playing the game, hotkeys lets you be efficient with your fingers. You don’t need to learn all of them, just the ones you might use frequently. It’ll make the game less of a struggle for your mouse hand. The following is a guide to hotkeys: wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Hotkeys At this point it might also be necessary to change controls and hotkeys to your liking. Play around with the menu and various settings. People have personal preference as to graphics, sound and hotkeys, so I will only present one person’s opinion of how to set graphics settings: teamliquid.net/blogs/412716-optimal-settings-for-starcraft-2 5.) Learn resource management This is the turn to start learning how to play semi-competitively. Resource management wins or loses games. Lost an army in the middle of the battlefield? Turns out your economy is twice as good as his is and you just train a new, better army and nuke his base to ashes. Resource management is often times deemed “macro”. The following are some guides of varying quality on resource management. 1.) osirissc2guide/starcraft-2-economy-management.html (simple, basic introduction) 2.) Day[9] is a Starcraft personality that does Starcraft videos on Starcraft strategy, etc. He has some beginner videos. At this point, it might be helpful to get a bit deeper into starcraft. Here is a compilation of good beginner guides (some might be a bit old): learningsc2/learning-resources/day9/ 3.) wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Macro 6.) Learn unit control Some/all units require special control. There are some interesting things you can do with some units that you can’t do with others. For instance, how do you take advantage of the fact that a Stalker has longer range than a Marine? Here are some resources: 1.) wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft2/Micro_(StarCraft) 2.) https://enjoystarcraft2.wordpress/category/operational-skills/basic-micro-operations/ 3.) Play Random Micro Challenge, an arcade game that tests unit micro, with friends. 4.) The following is a joke about micro (https://youtube/watch?v=tG_XYFTp0xo) 7.) Additional Stuff There’s way more stuff to master before you can be pro, but this is enough to enjoy and be good at Starcraft. There are hundreds and hundreds of resources to learn strategies, build orders, and unit control and positioning. But get a group of friends and even if you don’t fall deeply in love with Starcraft’s deep purple eyes and long zergy hair, you can add Starcraft to the repertoire of games that you can play. Starcraft offers insane variety. If you just want to take 5 minutes to 6 pool on the ladder, or take an hour building the death army in FFA, play soccer in the arcade, develop your own arcade game, or make your own competitive map, or play tower defense, or listen to some hilarious Starcraft jokes, Starcraft is the platform that allows you to do that. So grab a friend, prepare your pcs, download Starcraft and head into the world of the Swarm.
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 19:05:43 +0000
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