StarCraft anyone?

[DoorKnobHandle]

Anybody interested in playing some good old StarCraft? I've been playing for some time now and I really love playing it as well as following the pro-scene in Korea etc.

Somebody interested in a friendly match?

Over at iccup.com you can even download a version for free (legally) and play online, so there's no reason NOT to play...

I'm not a total newbie anymore but still far away from mastering anything, please don't be shy or discouraged, this game is always fun.

If we get a few players together, we could even do a mini tournament maybe? Also, I can cast (commentate) games and upload them in HD to youtube for others to watch etc.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Starcraft 1 is free now?  Perhaps since I've got nothing else better to do with this horrible temp computer I'm using, I'll see if Starcraft can run on it.

If it works, once I beat the campaign (beat it several times in my younger years), perhaps I'll try playing online.

[DoorKnobHandle]

The free version on iccup doesn't allow you to play the campaign, for that you'll need to spend the 5 bucks in a real shop. It just allows online playing on the iccup servers.

StarCraft runs on almost any system btw., it's really, really low-spec.

[ThreeOhFour]

Not right now now, but it'd be cool to play StarCraft against people that I (kinda) know online if this became a regular thing! I don't have a cool internet connection, but I can't imagine StarCraft needs that much bandwidth?

Except, you know, I'm kinda the worst StarCraft player in the world. As in, it's actually more challenging playing against an AI Zerg player than it is playing against me. I've won a couple of LAN StarCraft matches before, but that was all through sheer luck or people playing as factions they don't usually play as to even the score a bit.

But hey, I've even got the StarCraft Battlechest sitting here (I just went and got it from the shelf) and it's the second time I've opened it, and realized it has stuff like the expansion pack and Official Strategy Guides and even a technology tree chart (Sweet Jesus I love charts and crap for games )! So I got all the gear I need, I think, and it'd be cool to get my bum kicked thoroughly online by other AGS people

[Ryan Timothy B]

The free version on iccup doesn't allow you to play the campaign

Ya, I've already noticed that.

I played a few maps that came with the iccup version.  I also remembered how much I didn't like playing Starcraft against the ai.  I forgot that I usually played team co-op with my twin brother against friends, or sometimes the ai.  Team co-op allows you to move speeds similar to the ai.  But it did have it's drawbacks, resources always being depleted by my brother just when I was about to build something important (or vise versa).

Sometimes when I played I used to make custom maps and disable things like:
On Terran: Nukes and the Battle Cruiser upgrade (the one that gives the battle cruiser that large reach blast).
Zerg: the flying Guardian with his long range attack
Protoss: the Reaver with his long range ground attacks (the thing that looked like a big caterpillar)

Ya, pretty much anything the computer could kill me with easily because it's able to do things 10x faster than I can.  I can't take advantage of all those long range attacks like they can, so I may as well just disable it.  And when the AI was Terran, they would overuse the nukes all the damn time.

I think there was also a patch or something that would allow you to increase the maximum amount of men, beyond 200.

Ahh... those were the days.

[ThreeOhFour]

From the few Starcraft matches I've played, it's always been all about speed. Frantic clicking right from the word go and no stopping until someone types 'gg'.

I have a friend who has forced me to watch a dude named Bisu play, and if I remember correctly those dudes click a couple of times a second. The LAN matches I've played have always been a very intense experience.

Still, I'm not much of a player, and I can't play that fast 

[Andail]

Yeah, it's the speed issue that discourages me from playing these real-time strategy games more than very casually.

It's basically the same with battle of middle earth, and warcraft 2, or any similar game; once people have discovered the best strategies, it's all about executing said strategies as fast as possible. Just makes me stressed.

[Oliwerko]

Blessed turn-based strategies 

Seriously, once I discovered turn-based ones, it's hard to return to any realtime strategy game.

[Helme]

Ah... I have so many good memories with playing Starcraft. I think it was one if the first games I played on a LAN.

The laughed at me as I told them, that I prefer to play the zerg, but they screamed when they saw my army of guardians...

[bicilotti]

Blessed turn-based strategies 

Seriously, once I discovered turn-based ones, it's hard to return to any realtime strategy game.

Seconded. It's also less stressful (same for online rapid chess vs. turn based servers)!
I've played Fantasy General a lot online back in the days, but it was all a cumbersome PBEM.

[Wonkyth]

...but they screamed when they saw my army of guardians...

Yeah, the zurrg were unfair, but it wasn't the guardians that made it so: it was the zurglings!
Nothing quite like eating their four or so marines with a swarm of 20 zurglings when the game is two minutes in.

[DoorKnobHandle]

Okay, great, there seems to be some interested here.

Of course, we can start out by teaming up on an AI or something, co-op, if there's too big of skill difference or something.

I have a friend who has forced me to watch a dude named Bisu play, and if I remember correctly those dudes click a couple of times a second. The LAN matches I've played have always been a very intense experience.

Yeah, Bisu is a beast, Korean top Protoss player. His APM (actions per minute, how speed is measured in SC) is 300-500. You can easily calculate how many times he clicks a second.

Yeah, it's the speed issue that discourages me from playing these real-time strategy games more than very casually.

I can totally understand this. Speed comes with practice though. Plus, StarCraft is a game where a low APM player can easily win against a high APM one just by going for an all-in strategy (dark templar rush for example).

Anyways, so, anybody up for some playing? Please leave a note here saying that you want to play and when you have time, and make it bold so it stands out from the rest of the discussion on the game!

[ThreeOhFour]

I tried playing a bit today.

Not so much rusty as... well... disintegrated. Still, I'm interested.

By which I mean I am interested 

And as for the best time, well, that's an erratic variable

What version should I use? I've got a fresh install with no patches or expansion at the moment...

[DoorKnobHandle]

First of all, people really only play StarCraft: Brood War anymore. It's a standard. Do you have that expansion? Otherwise you could download it from iccup.com (the standalone version) or we can play the 'old' SC but that'd be pretty weird...

When you connect to the BattleNet it will update your version automatically!

[Crimson Wizard]

Argh, what I really hate in RTS is micromanagement prevailed over macromanagement. I always wondered why must you control your units as if they were dumb robots or something, telling them every next move... in my opinion that defeats the sense of strategy and makes it rather action. This becomes really stupid in such games as Age of Empires, where not only your army is dumb as hell, but your workers need attention every half of the minute or so   and yet that game is considered to be one of the best RTS....

As for SC, I passed both campaigns (first + expansion), but, to my shame, I usually just lowered speed down .

[Peder 🚀]

I am in as soon as ive finished the website of someone important! ^^
Ill also get my french friend to play too .

Do you only play via iccup servers or?
Me and my friend have been using GameRanger.com.

[ThreeOhFour]

Argh, what I really hate in RTS is micromanagement prevailed over macromanagement. I always wondered why must you control your units as if they were dumb robots or something, telling them every next move... in my opinion that defeats the sense of strategy and makes it rather action. This becomes really stupid in such games as Age of Empires, where not only your army is dumb as hell, but your workers need attention every half of the minute or so   and yet that game is considered to be one of the best RTS....

As for SC, I passed both campaigns (first + expansion), but, to my shame, I usually just lowered speed down .

Play Civ then  

I love Civ and you don't even have to tell your dumb soldiers that they should probably shoot back at the guy shooting them every two seconds  

EDIT:

Alright, I'm expanded (yay battlechest) and patched (yay battle.net)

Which gateway should I use? (I'm connecting using my mobile phone as a modem, which hopefully won't cause any problems)

^^ does it even matter?

[DoorKnobHandle]

Sweet.

Ben, let's try Europe? Can't remember where you live right now. Shouldn't matter though. Then join a channel called "agsforums", I'll be there hopefully! Otherwise we can post back here.

Peder, iccup, normal bnet. Never heard of gameranger.com

[Peder 🚀]

Its just like a program to help you play games over the net .
It makes a "virtual lan" as far as ive understood!

I havent had very good experience trying to play on the battle.net servers so..

[DoorKnobHandle]

Ah, okay, well we can try that out if it doesn't work in bnet (or iccup if somebody only has that version I guess).

Anyways, I just played 3 games against Ben304 and fun times were had by all I think.