Noooooooooo....don't give in to the dark side!

It's only for 50 wins (ie. 50 games). I'm hoping that when I eventually make it back to Protoss I'll find some of those things I struggled with easier.

Ah okay, in that case... . I think it's a good idea, I wish I could remember the name of the BW pro but he attributed a lot of his improvement on being able to play the other races at a high-level, which allowed him to see things a lot of other pros couldn't. Maybe I should start playing Zerg a bit, I've been having way too much difficulty handling players who are actually decent with Mutalings. Though I did play a great game yesterday taking out an 800d Zerg player who used Mutalings by going early Phoenix harass and getting a Zeal/Stalker/HT mix, so maybe I'm getting closer to the answer.

I mentioned some of the good points of terran above, but there are a few things I'm struggling with:

I'd like to be able to switch add-ons between my buildings as and when it suits me.
I want an early game unit that's fast and good at scouting and can jump up and down cliffs or something.
I'd like my high dps army to have some kind of ability to increase its dps by 50% or so in case I'm not already winning (maybe it could make them move faster too).
I'd like (though it's a bit silly) if I make a bunker, to be able to get all the minerals back for it if I don't need it any more.
I'd like an area of effect spell that wipes out the shields on those pesky protoss units (Maybe if it could get rid of the energy on those pesky templar too...)
And finally, sometimes I think it would be really cool if I could just nuke my opponent.

Don't forget Warp Prisms that heal your Zealots and Phoenixes that can land and attack ground units without expending energy.Haha, thanks for that. Poor Husky, though. He's an easy target, but there's nothing wrong with unbridled enthusiasm. Just because he doesn't understand the game like Day[9] doesn't mean he doesn't serve his purpose well. I pride myself in appreciating BOTH Husky AND Day[9] for what they do.

Ugh, if it's one thing the Go is far, far superior in over SC2, it's the general manner level of players. Seriously, on KGS it's considered BM to not type "thx" or "hi", and the worst I've ever been called online on a Go server was "idiot". But in SC2 it can get pretty nasty (and I'll refrain from typing out some of the things I've seen here). I've been pretty fortunate in not bumping into too many BM players, I think the worst I've had was someone who tried to hold a conversation with me while he was proxy 2-gating then pulling the offensive GG...well, was the worst. I figure we can all share memorable replays, so I'll start with the worst BM player I've ever encountered, whom I just played: http://www.sc2replayed.com/replays/6933 ... ring-sands

Regarding the game, it's a PvT where my opponent tries to all-in with late mass marines + SCVs and a handful of marauders. It doesn't work out so well for him though and he rages. You can see I was trying to tech to HTs because I thought he would do the typical MMM build and frankly I've found HTs to be absolutely crucial and the best way to handle it. Never happened though; shame that it's so high up in the tech tree.

This is the primary reason I've not bought the game actually. Even LiquidTLO I felt was annoying and immature despite his skill, and I have little desire to compete against people who either enjoy rubbing other people's noses in it, have some kind of crazed nerd rage when they lose, or are otherwise just rude and offensive. I know gamers have a reputation for being stuck-in-the-bedroom loners without particularly good social skills (no offense guys, I have long counted myself amongst them), but that still doesn't excuse being just blatantly rude. I want to enjoy what I do in the little spare time I have, and if it involves other people I would rather not have to deal with gratuitous insults.

It does happen sometimes in Go, I was playing on kurnik the other day, and played a 1550 rated player who had snuck 9 handicap stones under the radar, with free placement. He made a large corner shimari in all 4 corners and played tengen, and obviously thought it would be an amusingly easy victory. I got lucky a couple of times, and by 2/3 the way through the game, had taken the lead. He immediately started f-ing and c-ing at me, and after another couple of minutes just escaped. If more people were like that, I'd stop playing, but thankfully most of the Go community are a really nice bunch. I have yet to get that feeling from the TL forums or YT video broadcasts on SC2.

I find it rare (once or twice out of a few hundred games) that someone goes off like that. However, it still occurs more frequently than in go, but that's because I've yet to have it happen with go :p.

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19/02/2011: this grumpy person takes a voluntary holiday from L19.

I've bumped into very little bad bm (though I get gg around half the time). In fact I've encountered very little serious cheese. I've yet to be six-pooled or cannon rushed (100+ games). I've played against lots of more normal cheese stuff (proxy rax, all-ins, most PvP) but I quite like it. Cheese strategies seem like legitimate attempts to win games to me. They also seem to be generally weaker than standard play and I enjoy fending them off. It's a lot easier to beat cheese in Starcraft than read out the correct answer to a joseki trick play in go.

The funniest game I've played:
PvT on Desert Oasis. My opponent sent out his first scv to build a proxy rax. I scouted with my 9 pylon probe and it just so happened that he was building the rax directly on my scouting path. I attacked the building scv with my probe and killed it. Meanwhile, he'd put down an engineering bay and a gas and (I think he was intending to do this anyway) started flying his cc over to my base to morph into a planetary fortress. It landed in my base and just sat there. I was a little confused. Checking the replay - he'd started to fly it over about 20 gas too short to actually make the planetary fortress. He proceeded to lift off and fly to a corner of the map and make me come kill him.

Yup, Starcraft players unfortunately fall squarely into the hardcore gamer demographic of 99.9% 12-29 year old males. And so as with other online games, there is a constant culture of one-up-manship. It's not just in the form of BM in games; it's in the tone used in conversations on message boards, casts, etc. People are constantly insulting one another, calling each other n00bs, etc. It's disheartening to me that people actually defend IdrA (including Day[9] who is himself a great guy, the opposite of the culture I describe) for his rage. It's all well and good to say that he has good reason to be frustrated, but there is no reason for anyone to call the person you're playing a game with a faggot. That kind of language is one of those "disqualifiers" for me, in the way that a parent or spouse using violence disqualifies them from the right to any sympathy for hardship in the relationship.

That said, there do exist sub-communities (like this one!) where humble folk like us can interact. I do read Team Liquid, but there are just certain topics (including pretty much anything mentioning Blizzard) I don't open, knowing the sort of idiotic conversation that lies within. So the trick is just to know where to look and where not to look.

By the way, Araban, I watched your replay. You have two B.net names? (I thought you were Shobute.) That guy looked like he just got completely discombobulated after botching his wall-in, starting with canceling a Supply Depot for some reason. It was hilarious that he called your mass Stalker cheese after he did mass Marine + SCV. Seriously, anything your opponent does becomes "cheese" when you're frustrated from a loss. But, dude, you don't really make yourself look good saying "cry more". Although, put in the same situation, I might blurt out something like that, too, I don't know. My response tends to be to say something innocently nice, which usually defuses their attack mode.

EDIT: I just ran into this age poll on TL. Obviously it reflects TL users, not SC2 players in general, but it's still interesting. 2/3 are in their twenties, and only 1 percent are under 15. By the way, I'm a 25 year old male. Surprise.

This is the best way to respond to BM (ignore the unrelated voice-over - just watch the video).

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

Yeah, I have two account names and that one is the one my siblings use. However, they don't ladder (they're custom game fans) and so I use it as a training 1v1 account of sorts. And yes, typing out "cry more" wasn't exactly the best way for me to respond, but after many recent stressful losses against Terran players who always MMM+EMP me to victory, it just blew my mind that he had the nerve to not only say Protoss was imba, but to say I cheesed when it was the other way around. But I admit it wasn't right for me to respond like that; usually I just won't say anything when BM players go into rage-mode.

The difference in range between EMP and storm seems like an obvious and easily fixed imbalance. Also the fact that you need four buildings and two upgrades to actually use storm vs. 2.5 buildings and one upgrade for EMP...

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

I don't even mind the storm range, I just wish they increased range for feedback ...well...and maybe allowed armies to dodge EMPs ...and made storms more powerful...

Yeah, it was like a 5d player playing SDK players even, with a commentator not just criticizing, but mocking the kyu players' play in front of thousands of kibitzers. I wasn't really that irked against TLO, but the commentator (I think it was Chill) for this reason.

And actually, while I did rant a bit on the general immaturity level of the SC2 players I've bumped into, I think it's much more civil than, say, CoD or Halo 3 online (links contain over 9000 expletives), so I guess it's all relative .


How...what...100+ games and no 6-pool or cannon rushes? I think that's like driving 120mph on highways from Seattle to New York and not getting a ticket . I got cannon rushed a lot when I was in platinum, but looking back I think it's done a lot of good for me considering how easily I've dismantled and handily won the last few cannon rushing attempts I've had thrown at me. Same with 6-pools, especially when someone tries to do it on Desert Oasis .

And oh, replay for that funniest game!

Well, a lot of the stuff going on with the perceived BM from TL veterans is really meant as an inside joke kind of thing, where they try to "out troll" each other. I think this started around 2007 and got worse from there. I don't like it very much either, but you need to take it in context of a bunch of people who know each other very well and for a very long time behaving in a deliberately facetious manner.

Ah, thanks, I had assumed he was commentating himself. Thanks for pointing that out

Part of it is that he was in placement matches, which is always a crazy experience. Imagine if, on KGS, until you had played 5 matches and gotten a solid rank, you would get paired up against completely random players and you didn't even get to know their rank until after the match was over. Oh yeah, and most of them were socially retarded 14 year old boys. I mean, getting a rank for the first time on KGS is already a nasty and/or comical experience for everyone involved.

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KGS 4 kyu - Game Archive - Keyboard Otaku

I don't have the replay, it was a game from my first week of playing. I didn't think to save it. I just wanted to play again asap so that I could have a proper game.

I kind of wish I had been 6pool/canon rushed at least once. I'd like to try and defend against it - sounds like fun to me.

Another game I thought was hilarious:
Metalopolis PvP. We're on opposite sides of the map and I finally scout him just as I throw down my core. He's doing an aggressive 2gate build with zealots coming for me so I cancel the core and make another warpgate and chrono zealots like crazy. By the time he gets to my base with his 4 zealots I have 6 waiting for him and he immediately retreats. I follow him across the map to his base where his 12 zealots now outnumber my 6+2 reinforcements so I retreat and he's hot on my heels. This is getting kind of amusing and I'm scared of dying so I just make more zealots as fast as I can. By the time he gets to me I have about 16 total and outnumber him. I now chase him back to his base. At this point I realise that I should have moved some of my zealots off to the side as he was chasing me across the map and converged for a pincer attack when he got to my base, wiping him out (When I checked the replay I don't think I'd actually have had time to do this). I then become paranoid he's going to do the same to me. I withdraw just before my zealots chase him all the way back to his base. Checking the replay, he had no more forces at all and I would have wiped him out there and then. He was teching to dark templar. I lost the game a couple of minutes later as my core hadn't even finished.

I learnt a valuable lesson not to assume anything about what my opponent is doing. I played pretty badly that game but I did enjoy it. It also got me to start playing on the multitasking trainer map (http://www.sc2mapster.com/maps/multitasking-trainer/) which I highly recommend. I can beat normal with Protoss but want to get to the point where I can beat it 9 times out of 10 before moving to hard.

Re BM:
I've found most people I play to be quite friendly. If I have a fun game with someone I usually say so as I gg. Most of the time it leads to a short friendly conversation or an offer to play more games. Maybe it's self selecting and the fun games tend to be with the more friendly people as they are most likely to want a big macro game.
I got offensively gg'd once. He said it just as I was about to resign - he had won, but still.. I didn't like it. I spent 2 seconds trying to think of a way I could possibly win the game and then gave up and went off to make myself some tea. I came back just as he'd killed my final building. I felt a little bad, but I don't want to just surrender.