Don’t come by these very often, but the Sensor Tower is a great add on for starcraft 2. Its a unique and it sticks to the playing style of Terran. Its defensive, not extremely mobile and just adds a great new aspect to the game. Definitely one of the new units that I actually like, and if you have read my previous blog post, you know for me. That’s just hard to come by.

And there you have it, the Terran Sensor Tower! Not the coolest looking unit in the world but definitely a viable add-on to this competitive RTS game. And if you know me, thats what I’m about!

Too many times, I have heard stuff like Protoss has the mothership, Terran has Thor, the zerg must have an superunit or its unbalanced.  First of all, races should have different unique units, not equivalent units.  Equivalent units is what makes a bad RTS games.   What’s important is that each race has the same potential to win over the other races as a whole, with the game being in the control of the gamers hands and not luck.

With that being said,  I want to say that the most important thing in the development of Starcraft 2 right now should be on the unique playing style of each race as a whole.  You want the feel of playing a new race to be an entirely different game with different playing style.  The main problem with SC2 right now is that, it seems to me that all the races will have the same playing style which is “agressive and constant harrassment and rebuilding of your own base”.  If you don’t know where i’m getting this from, you might have a better idea if you read my prior posts.

Anyways,  all I can say is that it’s pity that the orginal Starcraft Developers are not longer there and from my view the current developers aren’t as good.  Hopefully though, just hopefully they will pull through and give us give the gaming world another great competitive RTS game.  Notthing, is final which is good.  So there’s still hope!

There’s a major flaw in starcraft 2 gameplay in terms of the competitive part in Starcraft. For those of you that may not know, Starcraft is still a very popluar game, especially in Korea even today, and this due to its gameplay style. Let’s face it, its not the graphics because I think we can all agree 16 bit isn’t too impressive for games today.

Now, before you continue reading about why I believe Starcraft 2 is moving in a direction with major flaw, please read this post if you haven’t yet ( What makes Starcraft so Great> This is essentially for your understanding of where I am coming from.

Again, I am speaking of the game in a competitive level. In terms of storyline or playing it for 6 months or so for the shear fun of it, it shouldn’t matter. But there’s a major flaw in where the direction Starcraft 2 is moving by looking at the units.

If you have read the post “What makes Starcraft so Great” You should understand that one of the most unique and best part of Starcraft is that the races are completely unique in its units and PLAYING STYLE. This is why you don’t see many players playing as random or switching races. Because doing that would be like learning to play a whole new game.

Now, let me get straight to the point. Starcraft 2 seems to be moving in a direction where races all have relatively simliar playing style. Lets look at some Terran units in SC2.

We got the Banshee, which is clearly a harrassing hit and run unit. Its role is sort of like the Mutalisk it seems. What else do we have? Lets see…. We got the reaper that can go up and down the cliffs, and throw mines, essentially killing the command center or hatchery. I’d say this is a fast harrassing unit also. We also got the viking which is the replacement of the goliath which is probably more effective in harassing than the goliath seeing that it can transform.

What is wrong with this you might say. Well, the harassing and agressively playing style is the playing style for the zergs. Terran is suppose to be a defensive race, that forces oppenents to attack them by choking them in a cordner where they will have their advantage. Hence the popluar tank push tactic. Now just imagine Starcraft 2 with all the units they got now. There are so many units for harassing, that move up and down the cliffs as if they were staircases, and i’m sure Zergs are also going to be a agressive races, cause I doubt seeing them doing something like a tank push.

If you can grasp the image of that you will realize that the gameplay will be fastpace, which is a good thing. But no matter the race you play, you will be doing the same tactics of harrass and rebuilding your destroyed buildings. Lets face it, with so many effective harassing units, defensive gameplay like the Terrans in Starcraft Orginal ain’t going to cut it. The only way to win is to play like a Zerg in Orginal SC. Play agressive and apply pressure on your oppenent, defending not going to work because theres too many areas that can be exploited with the Units in SC2.

Anyways, this is just a brief explanation, to get you guys thinking. Its not the best explanation in the world, but if you read my previous post and this one all the way through you should kinda get my idea.

Bottom line, SC2 is going to lose its unique diverse playing style to its races. Its not something that will be realized when you first play the game, but its a flaw I seen in many RTS games, such as the Red Alert and Command and Conquer Series.

Starcraft, probably the best RTS game ever created to this day. It still going strong after 10 years and is played in the professional level of gaming especially in Korea. I can tell you now that its not the graphics or storyline that makes Starcraft the best. Sure Starcraft has a great storyline and pretty good graphics for its time, but these are not the things that defines Starcraft from all the other RTS that has come out. What makes Starcraft such a good game is its gameplay hands down. No game has ever come near its level of gameplay. Now if you are are fastest player, or just interested in Starcraft storymode this doesn’t concern you.

Let me start off by explain why Starcraft is such a great game.

• Balance
• Unique and specialized unit for specific role
• Unique playing Style (Race)

It is because of these 3 things together that Starcraft so great. Now, I have played many RTS games before and many games are able to make the game balance and have units that have a specialized role. What I don’t see often is that each race has its unique playing Style. I think as non-money mappers alike we can all agree that it is not easy to switch race to race and expect to be just as good. This because each race has its own unique playing style and you are playing to some extend a different game when playing a different race.

I am now going to go through the playing styles of each race briefly, and give a few example how the units reflect their playing style.

Terran is a defensive race, not agressive. Can be extremely effective when put in a defensive position, having the capacity to take out much more units than they are worth themselves. They are also slower at expanding. This is reflected through the siege tanks, vulture mines, medics bunkers, supply depot, etc. And this develops into its playing style as we see wit the tank push. They don’t attack you, instead they push you to a corner until you have no choice but to attack them where they will hope to gain the advantage.

Zerg, an infested race that is agressive and units numbers and harassment techinques to win. They are very quick and expanding, and in turn are also very vulerable to attack since they won’t be able to set up settlements to defend individually expansions when its so numberous. They are constantly expanding and rebuilding expansions while attacking you to apply pressure on their opponent in hopes to keep opponent’s attention off their bases so they can muster a force large enough to wipe them out. Also note that Zergs they do not have a unit that can do lots of damage by itself, they are effective in groups and fast moving. You can see this being played as they harrass you with mutes and drops with overlords which are everywhere.

Protoss are a race with specialist. They got multiple units that by itself can do potentially large amount of damage. We have the templars with the storm, the reaver drop, the corsairs for zergs in the beginning, the dark templars which can finish the game if you catch them off-guard without dectectors.

This is a very brief description, we can go into much more detail but i hope you understand what I am getting at. With this aspect, each race you play, you are playing different game. After forming this kind of diversity in playing style between the races and being able to balance the game between all the matchups. That deserves a standing ovation.

Why did i take the time to make this post and is it important? Yes, because I believe this should be the basis for the development of Starcraft 2. Starcraft 2 needs to have this in mind to create a game with its gameplay just as good as Starcraft Orignal, but by looking at the units so far I can say Blizzard has definitly forgotten something and is going in the wrong direction. I still believe Starcraft 2 can be a great game but it definitely needs to have some changing, which is possible since notthing is final at the moment.

If you wish to leave a comment please do so, but if you are a fastest player or not famliar with the proleague arena then this doesn’t concern you. And please read the whole article before deciding to leave a comment.

First, lets just me say that Starcraft is a Great Game and part of the reason being is that it requires great skills to be a good player. The player must be good at both Macro and Micro. Yes, I said Micro.

For those of you that play pro non-money game maps. Let me ask you a question or two. Do you remember microing your dragoons, hydralisk or even marines when you fought a band of zealots?

For those of you that are that consider yourself a decent player or watch pro gamers play, would clearly know that micro skills can definitely turn the game around.

Now with that in mind, can someone please tell me how are you suppose to micro againist a bunch of zealots with Charge. And does it even take any skills to Micro zealots that got charge ability. Please guys lets think about this guys, having to micro zealots and micro againist them is part of what makes starcraft what it is. Lets not take this away, just so we can give them a new ability for the sake of it being cool. Besides the charge contributes in making the gameplay less clean.

I’m actually quite surprise that there hasn’t been much negative feedback about this. Anyways lets just say count me in for the vote to remove the Zealot Charge ablility because I do not think it improves the game in anyway.

Ok, the Terran Seige Tank probably is one of the highlight for Starcraft. It was probably one of the coolest unit in all RTS games at that time, especially how it seiges. That’s what I call a great idea.  

Here is a picture of the Terran Siege Tank in all its glory.

And here is a picture of … WHAT THE HELL is that??? That looks more like a fricken turret than a tank. Seriously what happened here?

Ok, I know i’m not the only one that has a problem with how the Seige Tank looks like in SC2 and blizzard will probably redesign it as there’s probably a lot of complains about this elsewhere too. Well, lets just hope they do because right now it looks like a ugly turret!