A little more on StarCraft 2....

I must admit, when I first played StarCraft 2, my emotions were joy and happiness, but that very quickly gave way to familiarity. After a mere couple games against the 'Very Easy' AI, I felt as though some of the magic was gone.

However, as my last blog post indicates, that soon changed.

As I played more, something most curious happened. I realised that the game actually played differently from how I expected. It's a strange thing - one would imagine that if a game doesn't meet your expectations, it means that it's disappointing. Perhaps in StarCraft 2's case, I wasn't disappointed because the game was too far away from my expectations that I couldn't compare it to what I was expecting the way I had planned. I'm sure that last sentence will make sense if you read it often enough. :]

Each day, I'm seeing new games being played, new strategies being used, and there is such a wonderful sense of discovery and adventure. I feel that this, more than any other reason, is why I love RTS games so much. It can take a long time to 'unpack' a game and really work out what makes it tick, but the experience is a rewarding one.


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In other Beta news, I was recently promoted to the 1vs1 Gold League, up from Silver! Personally, I didn't think I was 'good enough' to be playing in the Gold League. Although my first game as a Gold Leaguer was a win against a Platinum Leaguer, I subsequently lost seven of my next ten games. Ouch. However, I've won my last two games, and have even beaten Gold Leaguers who are slightly higher up in their various Divisions than me, so perhaps I can hold my own here.



Time will tell, though the competition is certainly a lot tougher than in the Silver League, and it's taking me longer to find games. Perhaps the majority of players are Silver and below.

I must say though, what does it say about the difficulty of StarCraft 2 if a person like me (and I will be the first to say that I'm really not that good of a player, as much as I love the game) is in the Gold League?

I wonder if there is a certain unknown skill threshold which one has to reach to qualify for a high-level League, or if the Leagues are arranged according to overall player skill? If it's the latter, the game would need a very, very large pool of players to really have seven distinct Leagues - something which is currently lacking in the beta.

And of course, there's the issue of what will happen many years down the road after SC2's release? What if the total number of players eventually declines? Could players find themselves bumped up or down from the League they were in?

Again, these things will take time to discover, but they are my musings of the moment. :]


There are bunch of RTS games which I'm eager to take for a spin, but StarCraft 2 has my attention for the moment. In particular, I have yet to play Supreme Commander, Paraworld, Worldshift, and Universe at War. You can expect me to give reviews and impressions of these games in the months to come (assuming I'm not too preoccupied with StarCraft 2!)

In particular, Paraworld interests me because it seems a lot like the Age of Empires games (which I enjoy very much), except with dinosaurs! Solid and proven gameplay mechanics combined with dinosaurs sounds like a recipe for success in my book. :]