Category Archives: Gaming

Probicus Parley 006

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

006

This is worth watching even if you don’t play the game. I want to post up a replay I watched about a week ago of an absolutely epic Starcraft 2 match, Toss against Zerg. This might be the most ridiculous SC2 match played to date.

The game pits MasterAsia, one of the top 5 zerg players on the US server, against protoss player TTOne, a pro from Brood War. If I remember correctly this is a 1v1 Quick Match, not a planned encounter. The match lasts a little over an hour and can be downloaded as a replay here:

http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/replays/35406

The four youtube videos that follow condense the game down to about half an hour, with commentary provided by HDstarcraft. You can probably skip the third video without missing much, but definitely watch the final few minutes. The word epic was invented for events such as these.




Probicus Parley 005

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

005

Today I want to moan about random team games. More precisely, I want to rant about placement in random team games: If you enjoy 3v3/4v4 random matches and place Bronze in one of them, try to work your way up while you still aren’t very good.

What am I getting at with this? Well, as arbitrary as random teams seem, you’ll find that they really aren’t all about cheesing. More often than not, one or two good lower league players can carry the other one or two to victory in the face of cannon/zerg/reaver rushing, but only when the other guys at least know the basics. In Bronze random teams, a lot of guys don’t know the basics.

That’s the extent of my actual advice here, but allow me to fill up space and time with some griping:

If you place when you don’t know what you’re doing yet, it’s going to be luck of the draw. I ended up in Bronze 3v3 and Silver 4v4, the latter on the backs of better players. But you’ll find out pretty quick that, the more committed gamers being mostly dedicated to 1v1 and 2v2, the skill level of each league gets knocked down a notch. Gold 3v3 players play like Silver 1v1 players. Silver 3v3 players play like Bronze 1v1 players. Bronze 1v1 players play like a diseased pit of vomit and decay. On average.

The plus side is your opponents are often in the same boat, however where in Silver most players will at least do something, in Bronze winning really is all luck of the draw. When you’re new yourself, it’s not so bad. I played a lot of 3v3 early on and very little 4v4 because I felt like I was really pulling my weight in the former and just being a burden in the latter.

Once I got a little bit better I switched focus to the 4v4 Silver league, and I’ve played a lot of really fun games in it. I left Bronze 3v3 with a decent enough record, 18-13 I think, but it wasn’t enough. I made the mistake of not moving up a league before I was good enough that playing Bronze random team games became horrifically tedious.

I played my first ten 3v3 games in a while today. I won two and lost eight. The two wins were easy as pie and the eight losses made me want to pull my hair out, because they were all completely luck of the draw.

Like I said, in low league team randoms you often end up with one guy pulling all the weight. In Bronze you don’t want to be that guy.

Picture yourself blinking stalkers all over your enemies’ bases, decimating all of their resources and losing next to nothing against big slow end-game units, outrunning and sniping, knowing you’re just a little bit better than everyone else in the game. In silver or higher being the best player in the game should put you in decent position to win, because your team mates at least know the fundamentals. In bronze, being the best doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

Consider my first 3v3 loss today. Actually, don’t. I’m just going to whine for a paragraph: I played as described above, I must have killed at least sixty workers and dozens of pylons and supply depots, and I managed to make one guy lose a good 12 BCs without dangerously diminishing my forces. Blinking necromoonyeti is a bad mother fucker. I mined out two expansions, I contained three guys by myself for 25 minutes, I was having a blast rolling over new guys who knew enough to mass units but not much else. I couldn’t actually take any of them out 3v1 (we were on Typhon), I’m not that good yet, but I slowed down their build up, kept their forces low, and prevented any semblance of an attack. And then when my forces finally started to crumble to a colossi and immortal pincer supported by battle cruisers I turned to my team mates to wrap up, or at least stop the counterattack while I popped out another solid batch of stalkers. After all, they hadn’t lost a unit all game. I was expecting a 400/400 slaughterhouse. Yeah, they finally rolled in with four 0/0 battlecruisers, about 100 zerglings without speed, a “nuclear launch detected”, and a “dude where are your stalkers blue”. This after close to HALF AN HOUR OF GAME PLAY.

So I went down in a fury of capslocked venom and spite and thought to myself at least I don’t have to go through that again. Yeah right. A pretty similar if much shorter scenario happened seven more times. Me and two guys who had barely opened the box against three guys who at least knew you could build multiple barracks and gateways.

On top of that, my wins weren’t even fun. They were the same situation in reverse, involving me and another guy rolling into a base with forces that each outnumbered all three of the bunkered down cannon and turret-happy opponents.

I am NOT criticizing brand new players for diving into 3v3s and 4v4s. On the contrary, they’re fun alternatives to learning the fundamentals against a computer. But if you want to keep playing them down the road, get promoted out of random team Bronze league while it’s still fun. This will save you from writing angry musings similar to mine in the future. Avoid a scenario that might make Starcraft 2 temporarily tedious.

Edit: I finally broke the eight game losing streak with a fucking disconnect. We were about 20 seconds from the victory screen and b.net booted everyone in the game. I think I’ll retire for the night before I decide to play a fun round of smash the expensive monitor.

Edit 2: I just logged back in and it apparently counted as a win, bumped me into gold league iowjwqoifjqweoifjwqoifjqowijfowiqfjwoqi wfw

Probicus Parley 004

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

004

Today I want to point out the benefits of communicating during 1v1 matches in which you are clearly outclassed. For every two or three players who ignore you or start thrusting their e-peens wildly, one is going to give you some awfully sound advice. My main point: When a player owns you in a particularly intriguing way, don’t just gg and watch the replay, actually talk to them.

I’ll highlight two personal examples to show you what I mean.

I had thought for a while that watching pro replays was only beneficial to advanced players – that at my level you should just learn from experience. This just isn’t true, but it seemed reasonable enough. I was winning most of my matches and my losses were usually close. I must have been doing something right. It was on those rare occasions where a fellow Bronze or Silver league player would ruthlessly crush me without cheesing that I started to think “these guys obviously didn’t place well, how are they so good already?”

So I started to ask, and sometimes I’d get a serious insightful answer. I found out about Day[9]’s tutorials and some of the other resources I’ve used not through scouring endless forum posts, but by being directed to them by better players in-game.

If you ask for information on forums you’re going to end up with a ton of different links to sort through. If you ask for it from individual players who you know from experience are using the kinds of techniques you want to copy, you’ll end up with a few specific, tested, relevant sources.

And you might fair better than that. When I switched from Terran to Toss as my 1v1 race I took an immediate liking to massing zealots while teching up to void rays. This worked consistently for about four games, and then I lost horrifically to a guy who took the exact same approach. I asked him what I did wrong, and he actually invited me to a 2v2 party. Over the course of the next five games (which lead to my only Platinum placement to date), I learned more about playing Protoss quickly and defending the rush and expanding effectively than I could have ever hoped for.

There are a lot of simple things in Starcraft 2 that you can easily overlook – things that general guides aren’t going to tell you and you might not notice in replays. For example, I had no idea that chrono boost could be used on a Nexus. It’s not a secret, just a false assumption on my part. Because I asked a guy in a 1v1 what I did wrong, I had a second set of eyes to catch stupid mistakes like this and point them out to me.

I’m not advocating zealot to void ray as the best Toss technique, and have had better success since by choosing between void rays and stalkers once I have a feel for what the other guy’s doing. Especially against Terran, building two visible stargates and not using them can trick him into massing a bunch of useless vikings. Of course, I’m not advocating that either, I’m just saying that:

Lots of players are ready and willing to help you. If you ask for advice when your base is burning away beyond repair, you just might get it.

Probicus Parley 003

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

003

Here I’d like to just talk about a great source for helping improve your 1v1 game. I’m sure there are plenty of general Starcraft 2 advice columns and videos, and not nearly enough time to track them all. (I certainly don’t expect many readers of this one. <_<) But if you can only keep up with one, I recommend the daily netcast by Sean Plott aka Day[9].

This guy might come off as slightly goofy at first glance, but you’ll catch on fast that he is both really witty and a bottomless source of solid advice. His entertaining commentary makes the replays he dissects fun to watch, and even if his subject of the day seems a bit too advanced for you it’s a great way to get in to watching top league gameplay without feeling overwhelmed or getting bored by your passive role in the matter. Plus the matches he covers are often normal, standard top league games, whereas a lot of the replays you’ll find on forums have been posted specifically for their exceptionality/creativeness.

Note that his post-Beta dailies begin at number 157. Since changes were made to gameplay between the Beta and the official release (I know roaches at least took a major debuff), this seems like a practical place to start watching. His SC2 coverage begins much farther back though, and if you have the time to dig around I imagine he covers much more basic material.

Probicus Parley 002

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

002

I said before I’d try to put the meat of my daily up front. Instead, just read what’s bolded if you’re in a rush.

This morning I played 4 1v1c, a 3v3 win, and a 1v1 loss. The outcome of the last game transitions well into my topic:
Techniques in Bronze league that you should stop using. Specifically:

Small but continuous attacks.
Cannon rushing/surrendering when an opponent successfully cannon rushes.

Approaching the latter first, because it is fresh on my mind and my nerd rage has subsided:

My 1v1 went like this. Toss on Toss, and the guy was at least Gold league because he was fully Favored. I built two gateways and noticed a cannon start to warp in near my extractor. I pulled most of my probes to deal with it, no problem. One more started to warp in, same deal. Three more, and my zealots came out, but I couldn’t handle all three before one finished. At that point I lost a zealot, and with yet another three cannons warping I called him a fag and quit.

It wasn’t until I got to the recap screen that I realized how stupid I was. Check out this build order:
Probe, probe, pylon, probe, probe, probe, forge, probe, probe, pylon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon, photon cannon.
I could have easily had 400 minerals by the time he reached my nexus and a half dozen zealots by the time he reached by gateways. That provides a pretty simple solution. Move to an expansion, take out his defenseless drones, set up a scenario where I have all the time and resources in the world and he has, oh boy oh boy, about twenty photon cannons. Even if he established himself in my old base all turtled up with his cannons, I would hold such a unit advantage that I could render expanding on his part impossible and just mine him out.

So lesson one of the day: Never forget that in early game scenarios your opponent can’t collect resources any faster than you can. I tend to instinctively think “well he’s got at least a gateway and three zealots at this point, even with all these cannons. Any decent player would make at least a basic defense.” No. A gateway and three zealots, that’s 450 minerals – three cannons. There’s no possible way he could support that and still warp in eight inside my main this early on.

If you’re up against a Toss player who feels obligated to cannon rush to win, he’s a) probably not very good in a conventional fight, and b) flat broke. He at best has a single gateway, maybe one zealot. Get enough minerals to expand and let your base fall, taking out his in the process. Don’t try and prevent a cannon rush if you don’t notice it before the first cannon is warping in unless you have ample units. Expand immediately and attack his main with what you’ve got. If he’s a bit more clever at it and starts at your ramp instead of inside your main so your base units can’t get out, it will take him longer to reach you. Tech up so you can transport out.

Some further ideas that I haven’t had a chance to actually employ yet:

The minute you hit his main he’s going to probably warp in every cannon he can right around you and continue to every time he hits 150 minerals. If you have a small force, say three or four zealots, that might be a losing battle. Try to take out his probes first. If they run off, they aren’t mining, so he’s not going to build more cannons. If they run down the ramp, forget about his base and just move your units into a held position so they can never get back up it. (If he has to start building probes from scratch then you should have a nice advantage, and there’s a decent chance he doesn’t even have the 50 minerals for that.) If they just start running around, you’ve got marines, and his cannons aren’t close enough to hit you from behind his minerals, just hold position back there. Only attack his cannons as a last resort; focus on shattering his economy to sub-start game conditions and then just start a new base and wipe him out. You should still have all your workers. When that base finishes it should just feel like a minor setback.

That being said, most higher league players probably know all this, and they have more to lose point-wise from surrendering. Pure cannon rushing should not realistically ever work beyond Bronze/Silver league, so if that’s your strategy, stop.

Secondly, my original intent, small but continuous attacks.

I have won a ton of Bronze league games by rushing early and then just setting my rally point to the heart of the other guy’s base. This works really well in Bronze because the other guy is probably going to just throw every unit he produces straight into the fight. Even if all you manage to do is take out his force and a supply depot or pylon, maybe two or three workers, per push, you’ll win in Bronze. This has backfired for me tremendously against higher league players.

Even if you win the opening assault (which is a lot harder against a pro who’s going to employ chrono boost judiciously/not go for an immediate barracks reactor/etc), the minute that first wave’s dead and they see units marching in by one and two they’re going to just withdraw their guys from the fight for a bit. It only takes a handful of extra units to put a quick stop to it, and then they’ll have an immediate counterattack advantage. I have a lot less to say about this one. Just remember that small but relentless/continuous assaults on an enemy base early on is a good way to get counterattacked and lose. It works really well in Bronze league, but quit doing it.

Aaaand…. right before posting this I decided to play one last 1v1, Toss on Toss. We both went stalker and immortal, both lost all of our probes at one point, but I won because I expanded and he didn’t. I basically treated him exactly how I would treat Very Hard AI, with the exception of having to make some observers at one point. When the match ended I got promoted straight from Bronze to 5th place in a Gold league division. So much for relating to complete noob scenarios. I guess I’m somewhere in the middle now.

And so much for easy wins. :\

Probicus Parley 001

Posted on by necromoonyeti

Probicus Parley
A Starcraft 2 Daily

001

I would like to start writing a short daily article on Starcraft 2. I will try to play at least one game, maybe a ladder match, maybe a co-op, maybe a custom, every day, and if I learn something new in that match I will write about it. My advantage: I am not very good yet. I will occasionally watch replays, play UMS maps, and seek tutorials, and if they are entertaining or informative I will pass them along. I am not particularly active in any Starcraft 2 communities, so I won’t be choosing the best of the best. I will be choosing what I find useful.

I’m mainly doing this for kicks/to track my own progress, but hopefully this should serve as a tool for players who take the game at least somewhat seriously but are by no means experts – players who have probably heard of Team Liquid but feel a little overwhelmed and subsequently discouraged when they go there. If I write about something that makes you roll your eyes and go “everyone knows that”, good. If I write about something that should make you roll your eyes etc. but doesn’t, better. I will try to throw the meat of my post out early and save my rambling for the unnecessary paragraphs that may follow.

About me: As of this post I am ranked 1st in a lowly Bronze league division, playing only enough to hold onto my lead and training against the computer for a while before I make a move to advance. I currently hold a 22-16 1v1 record, with 10 of those losses coming in my first 12 games. I am in a Platinum league 2v2 team, but have not done much since placing there. I played Brood War obsessively, but seldom competitively.

So without further ado, today’s topic: Training on Very Hard: Don’t Outsmart the AI

Playing against Very Hard AI seems like an excellent way to start preparing yourself to be at least a Gold league level player. You don’t wrack up 1v1 losses and you can learn to break out of your stalker (or in my case void ray)/marine/hydra shell at your own pace. Two key points here:

Stalker/marine/hydra massing will win most Bronze league games, but only because your opponent is playing beyond their means or trying to cheese. If you want to have any chance of winning later on, it’s a good idea to start diversifying now. Don’t spam your way to a higher league and then go oh shit, what do I do now, my opponent actually knows how to micro sentries.

The computer at Very Hard AI can force you to improve, but only if you let it. Play 1v1c custom games, and lots of them, but resist the urge to outsmart the AI when it’s beating you outright. The minute you start tricking it you’re learning nothing. Oh cool I can make it rally all of its marauders to my void ray army. A total waste of time. If you reach a point where you can’t win conventionally, lose and try again. If you feel like you can win without taking at least one expansion, expand anyway. If you know that zerg AI always goes roaches/hydras and you just saw an overlord, scout their base anyway. Maintain map vision coverage even though their expansion order and attack routes are predictable. Force yourself to go through all of the precautions necessary against humans that you wouldn’t take against the computer until you can do so and win consistently in a conventional manner. Only play on ladder maps and always set the computer to Random.

I have only won I think seven Very Hard matches, so if this article was useful we’re probably still in the same boat. The first thing you’re going to catch on to is that you need to pump out units early. A closing point:

Don’t be satisfied with your defense of the Very Hard AI’s opening rush until you can defend it with most of your units still standing. Whether this is directly applicable in high league ladder matches or not is irrelevant. The skills you develop in managing your base quickly early on and microing against the rush effectively without tricking/confusing the AI should be beneficial at all stages of the competitive game.

For tomorrow’s topic I’m kicking around the idea of highlighting techniques that work in Bronze league that you should stop using. The focus: If it doesn’t work against Very Hard AI it’s probably not going to work against higher league human players.

If you have any questions there are probably better people to ask than me, but I would be thrilled to attempt to answer them. Comment away.

Bulletstorm E3 2010 Demo

Posted on by Arleigh

Of all the shooters profiled at E3 2010 the one which stood out the most and looked to be most fun was Epic Games and People Can Fly Studio’s upcoming arcade-like shooter Bulletstorm. The game is developed by Polish game developer People Can Fly headed by Adrian Chmielarz. The game looks to follow in the footsteps of another arcade-like shooter which came out in 2009: Borderlands.

Bulletstorm takes a different approach from the more realistic shooters like Modern Warfare 2 and Bad Company 2. The game goes the way of over-the-top action similar to past classic shooters like Duke Nuke ‘Em and Serious Sam. They marry this with the XP mechanics of an rpg which helps levels up the abilities of the player and allow them to upgrade/buy better weapons and gear.

From the demo trailer shown above the game also looks to add some very Rated-R comedic dialogue in addition to the gory action. The game definitely looks fun and looks great. Like all Epic Games published titles it looks like Bulletstorm will be using Epic’s proprietary Unreal Engine 3.

The game has a tentative release date of February 22, 2011 for the platforms Xbox 360, PS3 and Windows PC.

Warhammer 40K: Dark Millenium Trailer

Posted on by Arleigh

E3 2010 has made some announcements in regards to several MMORPGs set for release in the near future. One game is Square-Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV which is the sequel to their previous MMORPG in Final Fantasy XI. The second is BioWare’s much-anticipated MMORPG based on George Lucas’ iconic space opera franchise, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Both titles have their fanbase looking forward to play them if just to take a break from the 800 lb. gorilla of the MMO-world: World of Warcraft.

Flying under the radar, but no less anticipated by their own legions of fans is Vigil Studios and THQ’s foray into the MMORPG genre. I am talking about their MMORPG title based on the very popular Games Workshop IP, Warhammer 40,000. Building upon the success and popularity of THQ’s own Dawn of War franchise (also based on the 40k universe), this MMORPG is to be called Warhammer 40K: Dark Millenium Online.

I’m not a huge fan of MMORPG titles since despite how well they play and how much they really look they’re major timesinks that require almost complete dedication from the player to really get into the game. This means almost leaving other games by the wayside and as a gamer that’s a big decision. Either play one game all the time and ignore other great games or only play casually the MMO title and not really get into it.

With this title I may have to rethink about how I feel about MMORPGs since this is one IP that even I am excited over. I have been a huge Warhammer 40K fan since 1990 when I was a senior in high school and my interest has never waned one bit. Now that the franchise has successfully made it’s transition over to video gaming I’m excited for the prospect of enjoying the franchise even more than just reading the lore and playing the tabletop.

The game looks to be like your typical persistent-world MMORPG with two opposing factions having their own unique classes. What I like from looking at the trailer is how heavily it’s based on combat and from the looks of things it might be similar to another scifi-based MMO of the past and that’s Sony’s very own Planetside. I like that vehicles are something that a player can use to fight NPCs and other players of the opposing faction. The only question I and other fans probably have is whether Vigil and THQ will avoid the mistakes Mythic made with Warhammer Online by actually creating a game with an endgame for people to use as their goal.

I’m sure more details will follow as the months pass by. Here’s to hoping that a release date or, at the very least, a beta date for people to participate in, gets announced in the near future. I already know what I shall play and that’s as a Space Marine and hopefully of the Dark Angels Chapter.

Fable III: Trailer E3 2010

Posted on by Arleigh

Another game from one of Microsoft’s internal game studios, Lionhead, is the upcoming third game in Lionhead honcho Peter Molyneaux’s Fable rpg series. This rpg series has been one of the big guns in Microsoft’s exclusive 1st-party titles since the Xbox and now the Xbox 360. It is also the one game franchise which has polarized the gaming community into hardcore supporters and vehement detractors. This major extreme split is due to the fact that Molyneaux has had the tendency to overhype the greatness of each game in the franchise as game-changers for the industry. While each game has been great and fun they all fail to live up to the most extreme boasts by Molyneaux which the franchise’s detractors like to point out with relish.

I’ve been a supporter of the franchise right from the beginning and while I am disappointed that the games never really live up to the rose-colored heights Molyneaux hypes them to be, in the end the games when given a chance to stand on their own merits are some of the best action-rpgs and actually bring new things to the table. IF one was to ignore the hyperbolic rantings of the studio’s head honcho then the games really stand great on their own merits.

This third game (hopefully won’t be the final one in the series) continues the storyline from the two previous games but advances the setting several hundred years into the future. The first game was based in a medieval-type fantasy world while the second game jumped ahead to a Renaissance-type fantasy setting. This third game, if one was to base their observations from the trailer, looks to have the series jump forward to an Imperial Age-type of fantasy setting. Just think of it as 17th to 19th century alternate universe.

The game looks to continue with the series excellent use of morality-based decision making affecting the world around the player, but this time around not just whether a player decides to be hero or villain, but benevolent ruler or despotic tyrant. I like this progression in the series as it should bring new kinds of moral decisions which could affect hundreds of thousands and actually end or cause wars.

While the trailer doesn’t really show pure gameplay scenes it does look to be using the game engine to craft the trailer (something Lionhead has done in the past so no pre-rendered scenes). This is one title for 2010 that I am very excited to purchasing and playing.

Halo: Reach Trailer E3 2010

Posted on by Arleigh

E3 2010 is just a day away from starting but that doesn’t stop all the announcements from being made by all the gaming companies. These pre-E3 press conferences are usually the highlight of the Expo for those who cannot attend. Pretty much all the biggest news in gaming are done during these press conferences while the official E3 days are left for people able to attend to try out the games announced. One of these games happens to be Bungie Studios very final Halo game for Microsoft before 343 Studios takes over. The game is Halo: Reach and it looks to be Bungie Studios best offering to date.

The game just recently completed a massive multiplayer beta where millions participated and checked out the beta build of the game’s multiplayer. From how people have reacted to the multiplayer it looks to be mostly positive with Bungie building on the past mulitplayer success of previous Halo titles. This time around Bungie has finally shown what the single-player and co-op campaign looks like. The trailer above shows the game to be squad-based with different types of Spartans outfitted with varying weapon and armor types depending on their roles.

While this squad-based gameplay is not new to the shooter genre what looks to be very new is the fact that space combat looks to be part of the gameplay. SPACE COMBAT!

The space combat scenes showed in the trailer is part of the campaign, but Bungie and Microsoft hasn’t officially said that it won’t be part of the multiplayer. Multiplayer space combat would definitely make this game a fitting send-off for one of the bright stars in the Xbox franchise’s alpha franchise.