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Revitalizing the Starcraft Community -By Zenith 2-26-2001
In March of 1998 Blizzard Entertainment release the much-anticipated game - Starcraft, a continuation of the "Craft" series. The critics at the time were quite skeptical about the game, some called it "Warcraft in space", while other say, and "It's simply another real-time strategy game". Especially when at around the same time Activision and Cavedog have both release their real-time strategies, Dark Reign and Total Annihilation respectively. However, hard-core Blizzard fans know that Starcraft is the one to get, and it was later proven Starcraft was indeed the gem in the flourishing market of real-time strategy games.
The weeks went by and the Starcraft's online community quickly built up, with the aid of free server, Battle.net, fans gathered and it became one of the most popular online games to date. When I first join the Battle.net in early April 1997, the community was fresh and people are generally nice and willing to help out the so-called "newbies" in the game. I got quite a few tips from the more experience player and during the time Starcraft was truly fun to play. It was during this time strategies been developed and you can nearly always hear "wow", "ouch", "cool" as new strategies arrive from everywhere. From the terran's wall-in to that all too famous reaver drop.
Soon Starcraft proven to be one of the most popular online games, it challenged the top first-person shooters such as Quake II and Tribes. During its gaming height Blizzard Entertainment released the Official Expansion Set, and all of sudden the slowing community again grew. With the additional units Starcraft became a brand new game, some of the old veterans found them once again learning and experimenting with new strategies as old one become absolute. With the various patches released Starcraft is at the state of near perfection. However, little do people know that soon an evil that lurk in the dark will ruin the game for tens and thousands of people. That evil is now known as "map hack".
It seems some people lack the ethic, they cannot and will not play the game properly and want to ruin the game for everyone. Patch after patch Blizzard released, but it seems hackers were always faster, once the patch is out it will last a few weeks, before those hack re-appear in a newer and better designed version. Then there is the double drop hack, which made the Ladder game a mess. Stats no longer distinguished the veterans, the only thing that worth considering is if you know the players. Top players fled to KALI, while I went to one of the local FSGS servers. It seems hard these days to play a game properly without seeing or hearing about map hackers. Just yesterday I was branded a map hacker because I found someone's expansion from an observer I placed there. Now I did share vision with him to prove I didn't hack, but the opponent said, "Oh, you probably got an advance version of the hack". Now to me that's bit offensive, as I have never use a map hack in a multiplayer game. While map hacks contribute to the majority to causes of decline in community, there is another issue that many people don't often discuss. That is how the attitude of players has changed.
It seems the days of veteran helping newbies are long gone, people nowadays just want to "hammer" their opponent down and laugh at them when they win. Taunting with sexual referenced language also became abundant. "F&#k you hacker", "You are a d#%khead" became common language, it's like going back in time to stone age when human haven't developed a sense of morality, nor respect for each other. This makes newbie players afraid of asking for help, for as soon as they do, a series of taunt and harassing will follow. I don't see how this makes you a better player, the only thing I can see is that you have no manners and lack the tolerance for newer players.
The last issue that devoted to the deteriorating Starcraft community is the map debate. Nowadays Starcraft players are generally divided, veterans play Lost Temple exclusively, while the newbies (unable to get help from any veteran as mentioned above) tend to stick with the easier map 'Big Game Hunter', while most team games are played on The Hunter. This has caused a huge debate on the net on weather or not the Big Game Hunter should be totally removed, but I don't see how playing just Lost Temple is any different to playing Big Game Hunter. If there is no variety of maps to play with, the strategies become routine. For example, in Lost Temple, terran vs protoss nearly always comes down to goon containment by protoss or heavy metal by terran. There is plenty of maps in the map directory, but no one bothers to use them, map such as Dark Continent, Discovery all offer different perspectives of playing, but it seems people are too busy argue whether Big Game Hunter or Lost Temple is better.
Last but not least there is the issue from Blizzard Entertainment, as they are neglecting support for Starcraft, I won't go into detail with this as 6&7eighths have already covered in his editorial. Go and have a read if you are interested.
So it seems to rejuvenate Starcraft community we need both fans and Blizzard working together, patches won't solve problem as the problem is not with patches, it's with the people that play it. Play it with manners and respect and you get cleaner and more solid community, use map hack won't get anyone anywhere, it only prove yourself to be worthless.
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