GitP StarCraft 1 group

[Winterwind]

This thread serves to bring all interested Playgrounders together for a bit good ol' fun in the BattleNet with StarCraft: Brood War. Also for any discussions related with StarCraft 1 - strategies, remarks, whatever. :smallsmile:
I'll update this post to accomodate new planned meetings, new people joining the group, or any other relevant news and changes.

The people who expressed interest so far are (BattleNet name in brackets):

DnDestruction (DnDestruction)
tannish2 (tannish2)
LordVader (GeneralJack)
Leper_Kahn (LeperKahn)
exodus_dragon (Exodus_DragonX)
Winterwind (Winterwind_GitP)
Korias
Cybren (Cybren)
Dumbledore lives
Vonriel (Vonriel)
Deepblue706 (LaserFace)
LiteYear (LiteYear)
Neftren (TheOldCoyote)
mf11 (ForzaFiori11)
Traveling_Angel (TravelingAngel)
PePe_QuiCoSE (Yakkul)
Mr.Moron (Mr.Moron)
Redpieper (Redpieper)
Everto (Evert0)
Edanor
Slaanesh (Slaanash)
Drago (Commodore_Drago)
Setra (Setra)
Penthar (Malderon)
Chaos Evoker
Moongoat (moongoat13)
Vael Nir (eU)NiCk)
SirSigfried (Libertarian_SDR)
Murska (Murska)
nooblade (nooblade)
Cynan Machae (CynanMachae)
The Orange Zergling (Baneling_Aspect)
SithLackey (SithLackey)
Adghar
Zakama (Zakama)
Lord_Asmodeus (Lord_Asmodeus)
zeratul
theterran (TheTerran)
Veridian (Cenerae)
Warshrike (Warshrike)
FieryBalrog (Balrog200)
Albub (Albubbly)
Rune Katashima
Goldstein (gold.stein)
GoodbyeSoberDay (GoodbyeSoberDay)
WarNiX (WarNiX)
Lykos (Lykos)
legoshrimp (legoshrimp)
Shovah
hobbes543 (hobbes543)
Winthur (Winth)
starwoof (starwoof)
stabbybelkar (stabbybelkar)
Cyclone231 (Cyclone231)
Rawtooth (Rawtooth)
Shooobs (schubert)
Rigel Cyrosea (Rigel_Cyrosea)
Raroy (Ralvious)
averagejoe
FF fanboy (WA-Vampire)
Krade (Krade[2k20])
DemonicAngel
Glenstorm (Glen-Storm)
Zocelot (Black0baron)
three08
DarkKnightCuron
deathslayer7 (deathslayer7)
kopaka (kopaka)
lordofthe_wog (lordofthe_wog)
anyone interested, feel free to join us. The more the merrier. :smallsmile:
I suggest adding each other to our friend lists - that way, it becomes easier to see who is online.

Our "meeting place" is the BattleNet, US East server, channel op GitP. This serves both for planned "events" as for meeting for spontaneous games.

Standard meeting time is each Saturday, starting around 2 PM Pacific time, with people joining whenever they see fit. This thread or instant messenger programs (like AIM) can also be used to arrange spontaneous meetings.

2 PM Pacific time corresponds to the following times in various time zones:
2 PM Pacific = 3 PM Mountain = 4 PM Central = 5 PM Eastern = 6 PM Atlantic = 11 PM Central European

A collection of often played melee maps - the same ones as used by professional StarCraft players - can be found here (http://iccup.com/getfile.php?file_id=23) and here (http://qc-net.com/david/promaps.zip) (links courtesy of Cynan Machae)


__________________

For all those unfamiliar with the BattleNet, here is a quick introduction. You can also find a more complete explanation here (http://www.battle.net/info/chat.shtml).

When you log onto the BattleNet, the first thing you'll want to do will be to join the GitP channel - our private Playgrounder chatroom. To do so, click on the Channel-button to the left, and type GitP into the proper box, to enter the channel. Don't bother looking for it in the list of available channels - being a private channel, it won't appear there. You will either enter the channel then, or get a message telling you that such a channel does not exist and whether you would like to create it. Do so - this means that either you are the first one to come online, or all others are currently in a game, instead of in the channel.

You have a number of commands which you can utilise for easier communication with us, finding out and keeping track who is online, and so forth. Most commands have aliases, which result in the same command, but are shorter. For instance, a useful command is
/help
which lists you the topics/commands you can ask the BattleNet to explain to you. For example,
/help whisper
will explain what the whisper command does.
The alias for /help is /h, so typing /h instead of /help, or /h whisper instead of /help whisper will yield exactly the same result.

You have a friend list, onto which you can place up to 25 players, for various benefits. All commands related to the friend list begin with /friends (alias /f). Those will likely be the ones you will use most. You add a player with the account name Nickname by typing
/f add Nickname
or, if you prefer,
/f a Nickname
so, for instance, by typing /f a Winterwind_GitP you would add my BattleNet account to your friend list. The list of all our BattleNet accounts is above. I suggest adding as many people as possible, or at least the ones who are more frequently attending the sessions.

The benefits of adding people to your friend list are manifold:

If you type
/f list
or
/f l, you will see your friend list, which tells you who, amongst these people, is currently online. This way, you can find out who is online, even when they are not in the channel. So, if you enter the BattleNet and don't find anybody in the channel, do not despair - check your friend list first. Chances are, we might all be currently in games.

By typing
/f message Text
or
/f m Text
you send the Text you type to all people on your friend list who are currently online, no matter where they are - even when they are in games, and not in the channel.

By typing /f p Nickname or /f d Nickname (or, if you wish, promote and demote instead of p and d) you can sort your friend list by moving people up and down on it.

If you want to remove someone from the list, use
/f remove Nickname
or, you guessed it,
/f r Nickname

If people are mutually on each others friend lists, this has the added benefit that, when one of them enters/exits the BattleNet or joins a game, the other gets a message which informs them about this fact. That's another reason why it is helpful if we add each other to our friend lists (unfortunately, the limit of 25 people is too small for the group).

If you wish to send some Text to just one person - be it, so that the others in the channel don't see it, or because you wish to speak to some specific person who currently is not in the channel, type
/whisper Nickname Text
or
/w Nickname Text
Another aliases for this command, which accomplish the same, are /msg Nickname Text and /m Nickname Text.

If you want to check whether somebody who is not on your friend list is online, you can use
/whois Nickname
which will tell you so.

Last, rather a fun gimmick than useful, but included since people will invariably ask about it, it is possible to write emotes in the chat, meaning that the text you type is presented as <Nickname Text> rather than <Nickname>: Text. You do so by typing
/me Text

Some tips on playing StarCraft:

Since a few people expressed interest in such a thing, here is, for all those who are interested in learning how to play StarCraft better, a short guide to that. Note, however, that this is purely optional for the convenience of those interested in reading it - if you are a newcomer, or doubting your StarCraft skills, do not worry, the presence of these guides shall not, in any way, indicate that being able to play the game well or having read those guides is somehow a requirement for participation or fun. We do not care about skill, winning or losing, merely having some fun together. :smallsmile:

Some basic advice beforehand: Guides may be helpful, but they can never replace practice. Another good (and possibly more entertaining :smallwink: ) way to improve would be watching games of better players - preferably with someone explaining to you why the players do what they do, be it a game commentator in a video, or just some better player from the group in a replay. Also, watch your own replays and - that's the most difficult part - especially those where you lose. It's crucial to understanding what you did wrong so you can get rid of that.

And finally, a disclaimer: I do not, by any means, claim to have a perfect understanding of the game. I write these guides to my best knowledge, but I can't guarantee my best knowledge does not contain crucial errors. I hope the players in this thread who are better than me can correct me where I make a mistake.

General Play
General remarks and tips for the game; the build-orders and specific strategies for the races in various match-up are in the race-specific guides. This part will outline the core strategies and goals you should pursue; if you are annoyed that what is proposed in this part is lacking substance and is not concrete, don't worry - that's what the other guides are for.
At the beginning of this guide there is a short glossary of terms that will be used throughout the other guides; make sure you are familiar with it.

Glossary
First to clarify a few terms that will be used throughout the guides:
Main [base] - the base where all your production and technology buildings are; pretty much always the base where you start.
Expansion - a new main building you built at some source of minerals and gas to harvest them. When you build new expansions, this is called "expanding".
Natural - the ressource site/expansion which is located right next to your main base. On almost all maps, there is a natural, in direct vicinity of the exit of your base. This is the expansion you are most likely to take first, for it can be protected easily due to the proximity of your main.
Refinery - may also refer to the Zerg Extractor or the Protoss Assimilator, not only the Terran building.
Macro - spending your ressources properly. If you have ten factories and keep all them running at all times, your macro is good. If you accummulate thousands of minerals in short time, you macro poorly. More to it later.
Micro - controling units in battle. Includes throwing spells, distributing damage between your units, and more. More to it later.
"When you are at 10 supply..." - throughout the guides, there will be tips that you should do this or that "when you are at X supply". This refers to the number of supply you have used up at the moment when you should do the specified task. For example, "build a Pylon at 8 supply" means you should build a Pylon with your seventh Probe while the eight is being built.


The interface
A few things that could come in handy to know about StarCraft's interface:
You can assign hotkey numbers to units or to single buildings by selecting them and pressing CTRL+number, where number is any number from 1 through 0. If you press that number later, you will automatically select whatever it is you assigned the hotkey to.

A double-click or CTRL+click on a unit selects all units of the same time currently on screen.

CTRL+click on the picture of one of your selected units selects all units of that type from the units you had selected already.

SHIFT+click adds a not yet selected unit to your currently selected units, or removes an already selected unit from your current selection (including when you click on the picture of the unit down in the selection list, and not the unit itself on the main screen). You can also add multiple units at once to your current selection using by holding down SHIFT and drawing a selection box.


Game concepts
A few basic concepts required to understand why some units are better or worse suited as counter to other units, and more:

There are three kinds of damage and three kinds of units in StarCraft: Normal damage, Concussive damage and Explosive damage, and Small, Medium and Large units, respectively. All buildings are considered Large units.
Units with Normal damage deal full damage to all units.
Units with Concussive damage deal full damage to Small units, 50% damage to Medium units, and 25% damage to Large units.
Units with Explosive damage deal full damage to Large units, 75% damage to Medium units, and 50% damage to Small units.
This is why, for example, Vultures (Concussive damage) are so strong against Zealots (Small units), but so poor against Dragoons (Large units).
You can find the damage and size types of all units, together with all other relevant stats, on the StarCraft BattleNet site here (http://www.battle.net/scc/).

Some ground units hover. This means they do not activate hostile Spider Mines (while being otherwise treated as normal ground units). Hovering units are SCVs, Drones, Probes, Vultures, Archons and Dark Archons.


* * *

The goal
StarCraft is, at its heart, won by spending more ressources than the opponent in a shorter time. This should always be the goal you are working towards - even when you are opting for a quick victory via rush, you are more likely to win because your rush costs your opponent so many workers that you win economically, than because you eradicate your opponent instantly.

This goal consists of two parts: First, harvest more ressources than your opponent, and then spend all of them. The latter part, while difficult to achieve in practice and a hallmark of a good player, is easy in theory: Just build enough hatcheries, gateways, factories or whatever you will, and keep them running at all times, while upgrading, researching and building. More to that later.

Now to the part about harvesting more ressources than the opponent. To achieve this, you need to keep increasing the amount of ressources available to you, while trying to decrease your opponent's ability to harvest his ressources.


Three Workers at the vespine gas
On almost all maps the distance of your main building at the start to the vespine gas is the minimum distance which a main building must have to any ressources. In that case, and also when you expand and place the main building as close to the gas as possible, which you should pretty much always do, the ideal number of workers to keep the refinery running at full capacity is three. More will not fit into the refinery, less will not earn you maximum profit, so always have three in it.
If the way is longer, for some reason, you will have to use more workers for maximum effect, but this should come up only rarely.


You always have too few workers!
You can take this as a given - if you are a beginner, you are guaranteed to have way too few workers harvesting minerals. Essentially, you should have 2-3 times as many workers on your minerals in the main base as there are mineral patches. Yes, that is more than can work efficiently there, but that is perfectly fine - once you build an expansion, you can (and should!) transfer a bunch of the workers to said expansion, so that it starts earning you profits immediately, instead of you having to wait until workers are built. Also, if you have more workers than mineral patches, some worker can take start harvesting a mineral patch immediately when the worker which harvested it before is on its way back to the main building, thus allowing you to keep harvesting from that mineral patch without interruption. Remember, the goal is to harvest as much as possible in the shortest time!

Unless you are a Zerg, the main building should keep producing workers non-stop at the game's beginning - ideally, until you have an expansion or longer. For Zerg, it is a bit more complicated - the highest art of playing Zerg is finding the proper balance between building units and economy.

If, when you hit 200 used up supply, you have 60+ workers operating three or more expansions, you are doing fine.

The importance of building many workers cannot be overemphasised. At least in the beginning, you should definitely assign a hotkey number to your main building at the beginning (this is of lesser importance, but if you are playing with English hotkeys and are a Terran or Zerg, it should ideally be a low number, so your way to S/D is shorter, whereas a Protoss would be better served with 0)

Remember to send your workers to work as soon as they come out. Don't have them just sit there doing nothing.


Distributing the workers/start of the game
Also called "cloning"; when you send the four workers you start with all together to the minerals, only one will start harvesting, while the others wait for him to finish, and the whole bunch will only slowly start harvesting different mineral patches. You can speed this up by sending them manually to different patches manually. This puts you ahead of someone who does not do this by a short amount of time - but, in the beginning of the game, even a short amount of time can be decisive.
The best way to start the game would be as follows:
1. Select main building
2. Order production of a worker
3. Select all workers
4. Order all workers to a mineral patch, so they already start moving towards the minerals
5. Issue order to different workers to harvest different patches.
My preferred way for step 5 is to deselect one worker via SHIFT+click on his portrait, then order the remaining three to a different mineral patch, rinse and repeat.


Keep expanding
You need to keep expanding, whenever you get an opportunity. Remember that the goal of expanding is not securing more ressources for when the ones in your main are used up - you want to speed up the rate at which you harvest more ressources, for which you need more mineral patches - due to the limit of just one worker being able to harvest a patch at a time, you will reach your full harvesting capacity quickly if you don't. While generally Zerg are said to be most in need of many expansions, and Terrans the least, it's still usually the one who can out-expand his opponent who will score the win. Try to get your first expansion quickly - for a Zerg, the first building to be built can often be the expansion itself. The only reason why you might want to delay an expansion would be if you are in need of the ressources for some other task - like going for some surprising technology quickly, be it air units or a drop, or to build up an army more quickly because you can't defend yourself otherwise or think you have a good chance to do more damage to your opponent with a massed attack than the delay of your expansion will hurt you.

It may be a good idea to place expansions in some places far away from both you and your opponent, so that he doesn't find it. This, however, also bears the distinct disadvantage of the expansion being difficult to defend then. Still, if you feel you can surprise your opponent, go for it. Also, offset distance from your main base with defenses - for one, expansions are a place where even many (as in, worth 1000+ minerals) defensive structures make sense. Make sure they cover your workers, even if your opponent should get behind the minerals (almost all maps offer such a possibility). If you can hold an expansion thanks to these defenses, they will pay for themselves quickly.

A good moment for expanding is when the opponent is distracted or otherwise unable to react - expand while harrassing the opponent or when you have successfully contained him in his base (see below).


The opponent turtles
As an addition to the previous section, if you see that the opponent is going for some massive defenses in their base - do not waste units in an attack probably doomed to failure, smile instead and start expanding all over the map. By devoting large amounts of ressources to stationary defenses the opponent has neglected his mobile fighting force, which means he no longer has the power to prevent you from expanding. By abusing this mistake, you over-expand your opponent and, when he finally comes out of his base, starved for a fight or new ressources, he will face overwhelming numbers and superior technology.


Harrassment
Harrassment is when a player attacks the other with some small-scaled attack, usually not with the intent of killing him, but of doing some damage and forcing the opponent to deal with the harrassment. An example of harrassment would be a single zealot or a few zerglings running past the opponents defenses and going straight for the workers; later on, harrassments consist of groups of vultures driving around and killing workers at expansions, or drops, involving some capable units (preferably with areal damage) being unloaded from dropships straight in the opponent's base.
The reasons for harrassment are manifold: You can deal serious damage to an opponent and quite possibly cripple his income by blasting most of his workers, and you create a distraction which you can use for your own goals - for instance, expanding yourself, while your opponent still tries to get rid of your drop. It is quite possible to win a game on harrassment alone, by dealing so much damage to your opponent's economy with just a few units that they never recover. Particularly nasty are harrassments with units your opponent might not have a way to deal with (i.e. air or invisible units); then it might even be possible to kill the opponent if your harrassment takes out his possibilities to deal with the harrassment (like killing his Robotics Facility with your Dark Templar before he can build Observers).


Scout
You need to know where your opponent is and what he is up to. For one, so you don't get a nasty surprise in the form of invisible units or a drop, and second, so that you notice when they are expanding so you can prevent them from doing such a nasty thing. Use cheap units (burrowed zerglings, overlords, zealots, observers, marines, spider mines) or even supply buildings to maintain vision at all ressource sites on the map. Try to get something into your opponent's base so you see what buildings and units he is going for - fast or flying units are well suited for this task. Send out an early worker - if you want it early, at around 9 supply, otherwise around 12 - to find the opponent's base and maybe even see what his first few buildings are - the longer you can keep your worker alive in his base, the more you will see what they are up to. Mid-game, it is a good idea to send out a single worker to some far-off ressource sites - it is expendable, if it finds an opponent's expansion you know where you have to strike, and otherwise you have a worker right at some ressource site which you can immediately use for expansion.


Maintain map control/Contain
Try, if possible, to keep the opponent in his base. You likely will not be able to prevent them from getting their natural, but draw a line there - here, and not any further! If they cannot leave their base, they will have much more trouble to expand (essentially, they will have to do it via dropship or breaking your containment first), and likewise scouting and harrassing becomes that much more difficult - essentially, sooner or later, they will have to breach your contain. Do not enter the base, unless you feel sure enough you can deal enough damage (which you will, sooner or later, if you use the contain to out-expand your opponent), but stay with your units just out of range of his defenses, and do not let anything out alife. Maybe even build some defensive buildings of your own there. If your opponent can't breach your contain, they are as good as dead.


Be aggressive, not defensive!
Attack is the best defense. You can't win a game with defending alone. Even if you repel ten attacks, if your opponent suffers no other damage then losing his army and you do not take advantage of this loss, sooner or later one of the attacks will get through. Also, if you do not attack, your opponent will have his will - he will take map control, contain you, expand everywhere and/or get the most ludicrous techs, while you don't do anything to prevent it. Conversely, if you attack, you keep your opponent occupied - they will not be able to do whatever it is they intend to do. And finally - it makes for a more exciting, and hence fun game. :smallwink:

Also, as a friend told me once, remember that your opponent cannot do magic either. When you have just been attacked and repelled that attack by killing the whole attacking army, do not assume that your opponent necessarily has some second massive army waiting to be used if you dare to leave your base. If they attacked, they likely used everything - if you still have even just a few units, this might well be your opportunity to get out and hit your opponents expansions, or alike. Yes, when you just had a massive army and suddenly find yourself 30+ supply lower than just a few seconds ago, this is somewhat intimidating, and may lead you to thinking you need just as massive an army as you just had before you can dare to leave the base. But if it was you who pushed the opponent back, it is quite likely that the opponent has even less now, and if you strike now, he will not be able to prevent you from dealing damage or maybe even defeating him. Many a StarCraft battle was lost because the person with the prevailing army did not pursue his fallen enemy and allowed him to re-build instead, thus giving him a chance to maybe, yet, turn the tables in an otherwise lost game.

Along the same lines, do not exaggerate your defenses. Every defensive structure is ressources you cannot use for units and thus keeping map control. In the short run you might feel massive defenses make you safer - in fact, they do quite the opposite in the long run, for they weaken your mobile army, which means you cannot leave your base anymore - if your opponent invested all their ressources into an army they will have a stronger one, and since noone can force them to run into your defenses, when you meet out in the field they will have the upper hand. This, on the other hand, means you cannot expand (for you won't be able to defend it), while they can, and thus you will fall behind economically.


Go for the expansions
It is usually a better idea to hit an expansion than the main base. At the main base, the opponent has immediate unit production, usually a well defensible choke and possibly defensive structures, plus all the units he has built which are waiting to be put to use. An expansion, far away from the main, might quite possibly not get help in time to be saved, and be easier to overwhelm.

Be wary, though - if the opponent deems the expansion unsafeable, he might decide to counter-attack instead while your army is occupied with killing the expansion, especially if the expansion should itself be decently protected.

Conversely, keep in mind you have that option yourself if one of your expansions gets attacked.


Macro
All the ressources you accumulate need to be spent, of course, if they are to be of any use. Keep building unit production buildings - about 3-4 per ressource site you operate in the long run, and try to keep them running as much as possible. If you see you are not spending the ressources fast enough - build more unit production buildings! Also, do not forget researching and upgrading - if you have decent income, you should consider building several upgrade buildings (armouries, evolution chambers, forges), so you can upgrade even faster. Upgrades are important - if you fall behind, you might find your army utterly ineffective against your opponent's.

So how to spend the income in detail? The basic concept is as follows: If you want short term results, spend it on unit production buildings and units. Short term results would be maintaining pressure on your opponent, rushing, harrassment and getting a viable defense after your army was crushed.
If you want medium term results, tech - build the buildings you need for better units. If you wait with this too long without causing enough damage with rushes, you will lose - without detectors, you will die to the Spider Mines, Lurkers or Dark Templar. It also allows you such strategies as drops or surprising your enemy with such units as Dark Templar, which can possibly win you the game.
If you want long term results, finally, expand. An expansion will need time to come to fruition and pay for itself, and it doesn't do any immediate damage to your enemy like a drop would. However, ultimately, the added income will allow you to overwhelm and out-tech your opponent.

You need to carefully outweigh short, medium and long term results. If, for instance, you neglect your army too much in favour of research and expansion, you are risking a lot. If your opponent is passive and leaves you in peace, you may get through with it - in which case your longer term investments will pay for themselves and you will likely have a great advantage. On the other hand, if the opponent is whatsoever aggressive - and a good player will definitely be - you may get overrun and killed before your longer term investments pay for themselves. Unless you think you can distract your opponent sufficiently with harrassments so he does not discover your temporary weakness - which is a perfectly viable and strong strategy - you would be better advised to not take this risk and carefully balance army, tech and expos.


Microing units
Micro is the art of controling units in battle. Two forces of equal composition can meet each other, and the one eradicates the other with minimal losses - due to the player's control. The most obvious part of micro is the use of spells - a Psi Storm can turn the tide of many a battle - but it does not end here. There are some other aspects of microing small armies which are highly important in the early game, since that's where small armies fight each other - and the one who gains an upper hand here is the one more likely to deal damage to the opponent's workers or to get into the position to expand, while the other still struggles to rebuild his army to a size where he could hope to defend an expansion himself. Also, the groups you use for harrassment are typically small, and can deal that much more damage if you micro them properly.

One basic aspect is, of course, to attack whatever is the most dangerous to you. If you can get a safe shot at it, don't waste your time killing the footmen, while the artillery remains unattacked and firing - go straight for that siege tank, lurker or reaver.

Another is: If you see you are outmatched, withdraw! There is no use wasting units against an overwhelming force - better to withdraw them, move them to the newly built units at your base, and overwhelm the opponent with this force instead! (Yes - this means StarCraft armies tend to sometimes run back and forth from one base to the other)

The next part is focussing your fire. By focussing your fire on one hostile unit, you take out that unit faster, thus removing its firepower. Once it is gone, all the times it might have fired upon you yet before dying if you had scattered your fire instead will be forfeit.

The other side of this is to withdraw attacked units. When there are a few Dragoons duking it out with a few other Dragoons, withdraw the one Dragoon your opponent is focussing his fire upon. Either your opponent's Dragoons will start to chase this Dragoon - thus moving instead of firing, which you can abuse to kill, in theory, the whole army without taking even one more hit - or he will have to start focussing a different Dragoon, at which point you can send in the first Dragoon to the fight again - you have neutralised the purpose of focussing the fire for your opponent! This works even with melee units.

A special form of the last point occurs when you have ranged units and your opponent does not - in this case, you can either keep having your units fire once, move away, fire again after they have reloaded, and so forth, thus greatly reducing or eliminating the damage you might take, or - if that is to difficult or time consuming to do - just remove the attacked unit, so far that the opponent's units switch to another target, at which point you command the first unit to attack and start retreating the second. This way, you deal lots of damage, while for your opponent only single units get to strike and keep moving half of the time when they could be attacking instead. Vultures, Hydralisks and Dragoons, in particular, can tear apart huge armies of melee units while taking minimal damage and no losses this way where, ordinarily, the melee units would slaughter them mercilessly.


Guide for Protoss
coming soon!

Guide for Zerg
coming soon!

Guide for Terrans
coming soon!
Some useful links for those who want to satisfy their SC addiction on other sites courtesy of PePe_QuiCoSE and WarNiX:

Gosu Gamers (http://sc.gosugamers.net/) - Good SC site with daily news and replays from pros and semi pros. The site also covers War3 and dota.

TeamLiquid (http://www.teamliquid.net/) - Excellent SC site for hardcore fans, with the best foreign coverage of the Korean pro gamers scene. Lots of videos of Pro games to watch and a good forum overall.

Iccup Ladder (http://www.iccup.com/) - Best ladder around today. If you want to get better, mass game. If you want mass game, do it here. Oh, and prepare to lose, the level here is high.

WGTour (http://www.wgtour.com/) - THE site for clan wars, nation wars and the top non-korean competitive SC overall.

BWChart (http://bwchart.teamliquid.net/) - Good program to see stats from replays, like APM (actions per minute), build orders, unit distribution, and much more.


__________________

Finally, courtesy of WarNiX, a couple of videos demonstrating good players at play, complete with explanations of their actions, reasonings and build orders:

An overview of English Zerg VoDs by different players:
http://starcraft.ingame.de/content.php?c=75534&s=475

For Protoss, some VoDs by Nony, a really good American Protoss, also featuring build orders and decision making:
http://de.youtube.com/results?search_query=starcraft+nony&search_type=

And some other ones for download:
http://starcraft.ingame.de/content.php?c=75533&s=475
The site is in German, but should still be understandable.[/QUOTE]

[TSGames]

Any time is alright with me. Still though, I suggest we create a private channel. I once more suggest "GitP" for the name and "Oots" for the password.

[Winterwind]

I didn't know one could protect channels by password (which is just plainly shameful, considering the many many hours I spent on the BattleNet :smallredface: ). How does that work?

[tannish2]

well an hour or 2 earlier is OK for me.... i think.

[Winterwind]

Okay, just so that we get ourselves synchronised.
It's 7:13 PM here right now. State your local time when you post next time, then we will have this figured out in no-time.

[TSGames]

12:20 PM local time.


I'm in the Dallas/central time zone.

[Winterwind]

Okay. That's 7 hours behind me, which means my computer's clock is not lying about the time zones. :smallsmile:
Pacific Time should be yet two hours further behind, right? Wikipedia and my computer clock say so.
Okay, so this means 3 PM Pacific Time would equate midnight here. Yeah, that's a lot better than the 2 AM we were discussing before. :smallbiggrin:
So, if everyone's fine with that, I propose 3 PM Pacific Time, and link to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_time
That would be 5 PM for you, DnDestruction, and I think 6 PM for LordVader, if I got that right in the last thread. I believe nobody else has stated what time they are using yet.

EDIT: I just checked both in the BattleNet itself, and on the help pages on www.battle.net. I don't see any possibility to protect channels via password, and I also haven't ever heard about that being possible. DnDestruction, are you sure that can be done? If so, how? Or am I misunderstanding you somehow about this part with the password?

[LordVader]

I usually eat dinner around 6 PM, this may be problematic. Can we push it back an hour or 2?

[Winterwind]

Yeah, of course. (I got that part about you being one hour ahead of DnDestruction right, right?)
So 4 PM Pacific/for tannish2, 6 PM for DnDestruction, 7 PM for LordVader, midnight for exodus_dragon, 1 AM for me.
EDIT: And I think it's 5 PM for Leper_Kahn.

[TSGames]

EDIT: I just checked both in the BattleNet itself, and on the help pages on www.battle.net. I don't see any possibility to protect channels via password, and I also haven't ever heard about that being possible. DnDestruction, are you sure that can be done? If so, how? Or am I misunderstanding you somehow about this part with the password?

I may have been mistaken, it's been a while since I did anything much on battle.net other than just join games. Let me check and get back to you.


It does appear that I was mistaken. O well, at least private channels don't show up on the channel list.

[tannish2]

duh, you mustve been thinking about games, (which they took PWs out of in WC3: WTF)

[LiteYear]

Yeah, but if you specify a game as private in WC3, it will only show up on the game list to people who have you on their friend list.

I'd be interested in showing up, but I wouldn't be able to make it this Saturday.

[Korias]

I'm interested. I'll go find myself a copy of Starcraft now.

4 or 5PM EST, if My calculations are correct.

[LordVader]

I have a conflict on Saturday, so I am not sure if I'll be able to play. Go ahead and I'll join if I can.

[Winterwind]

I'd be interested in showing up, but I wouldn't be able to make it this Saturday.Don't worry, this likely won't be the only time we do this. :smallwink:


I'm interested. I'll go find myself a copy of Starcraft now.

4 or 5PM EST, if My calculations are correct.Welcome on board. :smallsmile:
But since it's 4 PM Pacific Time, it can't possibly be 4 or 5 PM EST. I think it's 7 PM EST.


I have a conflict on Saturday, so I am not sure if I'll be able to play. Go ahead and I'll join if I can.Okay, so be it. Hope you can make it.

[tannish2]

well im a disk image of SC so if anyone has lost their disk but still has their key i could send them a copy... i THINK its technically legal(please correct me if im wrong), and i dont see any moral problems in it.

[TSGames]

Something may have come up; I may not be able to make it tomorrow(I'll know in about 16 hours). O well, if I can't do it have fun with out me. :)


Ya, I won't be able to join the SC party with you guys. :( Maybe next time.

[Winterwind]

At this rate, I sure do hope we will have anybody left. :smallbiggrin:
(especially since I'm not sure whether it will work out for me, because I'm staying at my parents over the weekend, which means I'm behind a router that I can't reconfigure to forward the proper ports. Should likely work out though, I think I have played SC from here as well)
Obviously this also means I don't have access to my normal computer, so now I have to decide whether I'm going to play on my laptop, or my old computer. The laptop is about four times faster, but it's a laptop...
Or I could just plug my computer's keyboard and monitor into my laptop and have the best of both worlds. :smallbiggrin:

EDIT: Everyone, remember to update to the newest patch. This usually happens automatically when you connect to BattleNet, but occasionally the automatic update fails and you may have to either reinstall StarCraft*1 and try it again or download the patch from the Blizzard site; either way, do it early, so you don't have to waste any time solving or downloading patches tomorrow.
The current patch is 1.15.1; you'll know everything worked anyway if you are able to get into BattleNet.

*1 As I just had to do, probably because I had overwritten my hotkeys with the English ones, which I plainly find much easier to use.

[Winterwind]

Just a reminder, the moment of truth is in just a bit more than two hours now.

Oh, yeah - my BNet name is Winterwind_GitP - some bastard had already usurped Winterwind on this server (and as soon as I find out who it was I will so pwn the hell out of him :smallbiggrin: )

I likely will show up a bit sooner (it's not like I will have much to do, well after midnight, save for fighting sleep :smallwink: )

[Cybren]

I'll play. My name is "Cybren".

[Winterwind]

In that case, welcome. :smallsmile:

[Cybren]

Remember guys it's US east.

Also, 4PM PST is 7 EST

[Winterwind]

Well, three out of eight for the first time. That's not so bad, I suppose. :smallbiggrin:
Was quite a lot of fun, though. I'd like to thank Cybren and tannish2 for a wonderful eve- night. :smallwink:

So, let's proceed to the next one. When do you think you could make it (anyone who's interested)?
As for me, I'm flexible, and 4 PM Pacific is just about fine with me.

[Dumbledore lives]

I think I can do it, but not next week, the week after is fine. I'm about I believe 17 hours ahead of Central time so maybe 18 hours ahead eastern. I'm not that good but I suppose I'm okay at Starcraft.

[TSGames]

I think I can do it, but not next week, the week after is fine. I'm about I believe 17 hours ahead of Central time so maybe 18 hours ahead eastern. I'm not that good but I suppose I'm okay at Starcraft.

I have a similar dilemma. Actually, I'm sort of... exploring several new activities at once, and I don't think I'll have time again for a while. Anyway, sorry I missed the last one, and good luck with the next one. Have fun without me!

[Vonriel]

I'll throw my hat into the ring. If everyone has an instant messenger, we could use that to see who's available to play. I don't know if anyone was waiting long in the room or not, but that may be a good way to organize/remind people, and possibly for spontaneous games you may wanna play.

My BNet name is Vonriel, my AIM and MSN are in my profile. (Yes, I know, I'm so original :smalltongue: )

Edit: For now, that timeslot is open for the next two weeks, but I may be getting a job Monday that could interfere with it.

Double Edit: New Zealand is 17 hours ahead of eastern, 20 hours ahead of pacific.

[Leper_Kahn]

*Forehead slap*

I totally forgot about it... Sorry!

[Deepblue706]

I play.

Username: LaserFace

Hope to see you fellas on.

[Winterwind]

I think I can do it, but not next week, the week after is fine. I'm about I believe 17 hours ahead of Central time so maybe 18 hours ahead eastern. I'm not that good but I suppose I'm okay at Starcraft.Great, welcome on board. :smallsmile:
Since it's obvious we never will all be there when we assemble, I think it will be best if we just try and set these meetings up regularly and as often as possible, in such a way that it works for as many people as possible, and whoever is able to come shall do so.


I have a similar dilemma. Actually, I'm sort of... exploring several new activities at once, and I don't think I'll have time again for a while. Anyway, sorry I missed the last one, and good luck with the next one. Have fun without me!All right, thank you, and have fun with whatever it is you do. :smallsmile:
And if you ever happen to have time and desire when we play, you're welcome to join us anytime. :smallwink:


I'll throw my hat into the ring. If everyone has an instant messenger, we could use that to see who's available to play. I don't know if anyone was waiting long in the room or not, but that may be a good way to organize/remind people, and possibly for spontaneous games you may wanna play.Welcome. :smallsmile:
Yes, I've been thinking about that myself. We really should do that.
Also, it might make sense if people who want to play spontaneously just check out the GitP channel and/or drop a quick message in this thread here; that way, we might get a few spontaneous games organised as well.


My BNet name is Vonriel, my AIM and MSN are in my profile. (Yes, I know, I'm so original :smalltongue: )I'm more of an ICQ kinda guy, but AIM is for free, too, and more popular over in the US, right? Sounds like I should get it, then, to simplify matters.


*Forehead slap*

I totally forgot about it... Sorry!Nevermind. There's always another chance. :smallwink:


I play.

Username: LaserFace

Hope to see you fellas on.Welcome on board. :smallsmile:

It would help if everyone added everyone to their friend lists, so that we see each other in the BNet.

I'll update the first post to include the new BNet names and everything... later. Gotta go now. :smallwink:
EDIT: Done. And since I forgot to say it in the first post originally, for all who haven't noticed yet, I update the first post to accomodate all people joining the group, the currently discussed meeting time, etc.

EDIT2: So, we should begin searching for the next date when we want to meet. Shall we stick to the same time as the last one (i.e. Saturday 4 PM Pacific Time), or shall we meet earlier than that (Friday, or during the week)?

Another way to do this I thought about was to just declare 4 PM Pacific StarCraft time and anyone who has any desire to play shall just come online and be in the GitP channel then, any day; we could still use this thread to arrange any meetings outside of that timeframe.
How's that sound?

[tannish2]

4 PM pacific on saturday works great, friday might work, but i would suck even more.

[LordVader]

My Bnet username is GeneralJack. 4PM Fridays is bad for me, but I should be able to play every now and then.

[Winterwind]

4 PM pacific on saturday works great, friday might work, but i would suck even more.Okay, let's stick with Saturday 4 PM for our standard time, then, unless others voice different preferences.
Other than that, I suggest we use AIM or this thread to arrange spontaneous sessions, and we might also add that whenever people feel like playing StarCraft at some day, they should just look whether there's somebody in the GitP channel around 4 PM Pacific time - that way we could get a few spontaneous matches without any organisation under way.


My Bnet username is GeneralJack. 4PM Fridays is bad for me, but I should be able to play every now and then.The standard meeting time is Saturdays, not Fridays. Does that change matters?
Also, BNet name added to first post and BNet friend list. :smallsmile:

[Deepblue706]

4pm Pacific on Saturdays works very poorly for me. But, I may be found online later in the night, possibly extending into the early hours of sundays.

[Winterwind]

4pm Pacific on Saturdays works very poorly for me. But, I may be found online later in the night, possibly extending into the early hours of sundays.Well, I would suggest a later meeting time, in that case, especially since I presume that you are by far not the only one who would prefer it to be later... only that this would, pretty much, exclude me - for me, even 4 PM Pacific is already quite late in the night. That's the disadvantage, I guess, of living on a rotating sphere, instead of a more Arestotelian world. :smallwink:
So, if the majority is for shifting the time to some later hour, so be it; personally, I would very much prefer it to stay as it is, and all people who come in later to simply join us.

[tannish2]

ya see if it can start at 2 or 3 pacific time and go til later... have it be an ongoing thing, no, wait, that violates the 1 game of a multiplayer video game a week rule of the universe. O CRAP WERE ALL GOING TO DIE, sorry.

[Winterwind]

ya see if it can start at 2 or 3 pacific time and go til later... have it be an ongoing thing, no, wait, that violates the 1 game of a multiplayer video game a week rule of the universe. O CRAP WERE ALL GOING TO DIE, sorry.Rule of the Universe 1h/week multiplayer gaming only? :smalleek:
Oh my... in that case I think there have been times when I screwed the Universe over just about twenty or thirty times...

Anyway, that would be awesome. Beginning at 2 or 3 Pacific and just playing together, with people joining whenever they want to, would work much better for me (starting a game session before midnight seems like an improvement over the former plan). So, what do all of you think, shall we do it this way?

[Winterwind]

Well? Any opinions on any of the proposals, anyone? This perpetual silence is slowly getting... disheartening.

To summarise, it has been proposed that
- we start playing at a sooner hour - like 2 or 3 PM Pacific - and people just join in whenever it suits them best. Do you think this would work, or would we all completely miss each other then?
- we use instant messenger programs, like AIM, and this thread to arrange spontaneous meetings
- the standard meeting time is Saturdays 4 PM Pacific.

Also, regarding all the people who wished to participate originally, didn't appear and have been silent since, are you still interested?

[Vonriel]

Pretty much any time that isn't at some unearthly hour in the USA is good for me. You know, 5, 6, 7 am :smallwink: Really, though, I'm generally unavailable midnight to 8 am pacific, but until I get a job, I can pretty much play at any other time. I'm still interested, but something like this is going to require more than just us to be vocal.

Speak up, everyone else who wants to play, otherwise I'll taunt you a se..first time.

[tannish2]

hhhhhhhmmmmmm ill put my MSN messenger adress in my profile.

[Winterwind]

Somehow, I get the impression a few folks who were originally interested thought this was going to be a one-time thing and, once they missed the original time, stopped following this thread altogether. I would consider sending PMs to all of them, only... it might just as well be that they simply have lost interest, in which case I don't want to harrass them with that.

Also, I need to figure out how exactly I can use Gaim to communicate via AIM or MSN protocols (Gaim is a freeware instant messenger program which combines a whole bunch of instant messenger protocols, including ICQ, AIM, MSN, a few more obscure ones, and - with the proper plug-in, and the reason why I got it originally - also BattleNet)

[TSGames]

Somehow, I get the impression a few folks who were originally interested thought this was going to be a one-time thing and, once they missed the original time, stopped following this thread altogether. I would consider sending PMs to all of them, only... it might just as well be that they simply have lost interest, in which case I don't want to harrass them with that.


Nah, I don't think anyone lost interest, it's just difficult to coordinate something like this. Everybody's doing something, it's hard to find the time.

As far as instant messenger goes, I highly recommend "Trilian" for windows, or "Fire" for mac. Each is intuitive and makes dealing with almost any instant messenger protocol easy. Although, I'm, interested in what you mentioned about the Battle.net plugin for Gaim...

Maybe I'll add my instant messenger to my profile in a few days, too much to do right now.

[Winterwind]

Nah, I don't think anyone lost interest, it's just difficult to coordinate something like this. Everybody's doing something, it's hard to find the time.Yeah, probably... I just kinda wished they started answering to the proposals made by tannish2, Vonriel, me or anybody else who posts on this thread.


As far as instant messenger goes, I highly recommend "Trilian" for windows, or "Fire" for mac. Each is intuitive and makes dealing with almost any instant messenger protocol easy. Although, I'm, interested in what you mentioned about the Battle.net plugin for Gaim...Upon a quick search through the Internet I found that Gaim has been by now renamed to "Pidgin", but I suppose they wouldn't have kicked out old features, now, would they?
We used to use that plugin to just sit around in our BNet channel and do something different otherwise, and when somebody entered the channel we would see and hear it via the instant messenger. Quite useful.


Maybe I'll add my instant messenger to my profile in a few days, too much to do right now.I'll do that sometime soon, too.

[Winterwind]

So, as a reminder, next planned meeting is tomorrow (on Saturday) at 4 PM Pacific. If anyone want the time changed, (s)he shall speak now or remain silent forever.

[Winterwind]

Due to more people expressing interest in tannish2's proposal, we shall do it a bit differently: We start already at 2 PM Pacific, and people shall join as they see fit, be it 2 PM or 4 PM or whenever they desire to.

EDIT: Well, thanks to LiteYear, tannish2 and Vonriel for yet another fun session. :smallsmile:

[Winterwind]

Tomorrow's the big event again, folks! :smallsmile:

(I hope that it's okay that I make so many posts in succession; it's only because otherwise people would not see them, and they are, after all, meant as reminders)

[tannish2]

less than 2 and a half hours, also you dont have to do any more consecutive posts.

[cookie808]

hello
i am cookie808 and i was looking online for starcraft info when i stumbled upon this forum
you all seem pretty familiar with starcraft and i was wondering if any of you know what game types allow allying
ive been having trouble with this when i create a ffa game and want to ally with somebody, i know that to ally you have to go on diplomasy, but everytime i do the computer wont let me click on the grey ally and ally vision boxes nor the allied victory box
can anybody help me? :smalleek:

please?

[Winterwind]

hello
i am cookie808 and i was looking online for starcraft info when i stumbled upon this forum
you all seem pretty familiar with starcraft and i was wondering if any of you know what game types allow allying
ive been having trouble with this when i create a ffa game and want to ally with somebody, i know that to ally you have to go on diplomasy, but everytime i do the computer wont let me click on the grey ally and ally vision boxes nor the allied victory box
can anybody help me? :smalleek:

please?Melee allows allying as you see fit, with the possibility to change alliance settings during the game at any time (this is, for instance, helpful if you are, for all purposes, dead, have just one building left standing, and there are other players still fighting each other - that way you can just ask them to leave the one building standing and to give you vision, so that you can watch the battle, instead of having to wait idling in the channel. Of course that only works if the people trust each other). Top Versus Bottom starts with preset alliances which can't be changed during the game. Free For All does not allow allying at all.

[Neftren]

Recently dragged out my old copy of Starcraft for the PC, to find it works on the Mac! Yes, I have Brood Wars too. Only problem is that my computer stubbornly refuses to process UDP packets through port 6112. Even if I open it via Firewall preferences, leading me to believe that it's blocked through my router.

I'm 'The Old Coyote' on Battlenet. Although my Mac won't process UDP packets through the aforementioned port, and my PC is currently dissassembled.

[Winterwind]

Recently dragged out my old copy of Starcraft for the PC, to find it works on the Mac! Yes, I have Brood Wars too. Only problem is that my computer stubbornly refuses to process UDP packets through port 6112. Even if I open it via Firewall preferences, leading me to believe that it's blocked through my router.

I'm 'The Old Coyote' on Battlenet. Although my Mac won't process UDP packets through the aforementioned port, and my PC is currently dissassembled.You can reconfigure your router to forward these ports; it is fairly often a requirement in order to play on BattleNet (I have to do so as well).
You can find what Blizzard has to say about this issue here (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=21109) and here (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=20900&categoryId=2645&parentCategoryId=2612&pageNumber=1).

Also, welcome. :smallsmile:

[Aramil Liadon]

Is anyone really horrible? 'Cause I could play them. I just don't have any skill or tactics or basic understanding of gameplay. So killing me is no fun.
Oh, and 8:44.

[Neftren]

You can reconfigure your router to forward these ports; it is fairly often a requirement in order to play on BattleNet (I have to do so as well).
You can find what Blizzard has to say about this issue here (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=21109) and here (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=20900&categoryId=2645&parentCategoryId=2612&pageNumber=1).

Also, welcome. :smallsmile:

Uh, is there a way to remote access my router?

And Aramil, there are 3 main strategies when playing.

Zerg = Zergling and Hydralisk Mass Attack
Terrans = Balanced assault with Firebats, Marines and occasionally Vultures
Protoss = Zealot Swarm. They're hard to kill, they hit really hard and well... I actually prefer just building Photon Cannons in a small wall and then build a huge airforce of scouts to incapacitate the opponent from long range using Hit and Run tactics.

[Winterwind]

Is anyone really horrible? 'Cause I could play them. I just don't have any skill or tactics or basic understanding of gameplay. So killing me is no fun.
Oh, and 8:44.The skill levels vary. So far, none of us is a real pro, I would say, so don't worry. :smallwink:
Besides, we also play custom maps now and then, in addition to regular games.
8:44? That means you're in the Eastern Standard Time zone, right?
2 PM Pacific Time should be 5 PM for you, then.


Uh, is there a way to remote access my router?I'm not sure what you mean by "remote", but if you enter the internal IP address of your router into your browser, you will get access to the router (although you will have to enter a password; if you didn't change it the default password should be somewhere in the router's manual or elsewhere with the stuff that came with the router).


And Aramil, there are 3 main strategies when playing. I don't want to sound like a know-it-all, but I have some remarks concerning these 3 strategies you mentioned. :smallwink:


Zerg = Zergling and Hydralisk Mass AttackThat definitely works. Throwing in Lurkers would help, is not necessary though.

Terrans = Balanced assault with Firebats, Marines and occasionally VulturesAgainst a Zerg, that would work (although you should add Medics, too, and Siege Tank support later on). Do that against a Terran or a Protoss, and you're betting all on one card, and not even a particularly good one: Unless you're first attack does completely obliterate the opponent (which is not that likely), you're toast.

Protoss = Zealot Swarm. They're hard to kill, they hit really hard and well... I actually prefer just building Photon Cannons in a small wall and then build a huge airforce of scouts to incapacitate the opponent from long range using Hit and Run tactics.Just remember that every single defensive structure you build is not spent on your army, thus surrendering map control to the opponent. Build too much defensive buildings, and the enemy will expand all over the map meanwhile and beat you economically.
Also, Vultures and Dragoons are devastating against Zealots without Leg Upgrade, which you can't get early on.

[ForzaFiori]

y'all got room for one more crappy player?

i can't get on every saturday, but i could come and get killed on a couple of them.

[tannish2]

as i say before every game "PREPARE TO WIN BITCH(s)" i only seem to have a chance in FFAs, and against computers (whos intelligence i think adjusts to either the host or the highest rated player in the game, because i played one by myself a while ago and it sucked, but when i played in that 4vcomps match with you guys earlier we got our asses kicked and i didnt even have recources before i was rushed)

[Traveling_Angel]

Hi all. I'm interested, and my skill for as a player, I'm kinda OKish with my local group.

^You can set comps to have a difficulty on a map, which can be easier/harder then the default.

On the subject of strategy, one thing I've found true is that each race has a time where they really shine. For the Zerg, thats early on. The Protoss have some spectacular effects in the late game, while the Terrans take up the middle ground. Each can win in any of the three, but thats where they really shine.

[Winterwind]

y'all got room for one more crappy player?

i can't get on every saturday, but i could come and get killed on a couple of them.
Hi all. I'm interested, and my skill for as a player, I'm kinda OKish with my local group. Welcome on board, both of ya. :smallsmile:


^You can set comps to have a difficulty on a map, which can be easier/harder then the default. I believe you're thinking of WarCraft III here. AIs in StarCraft had no adjustable difficulty setting yet.


On the subject of strategy, one thing I've found true is that each race has a time where they really shine. For the Zerg, thats early on. The Protoss have some spectacular effects in the late game, while the Terrans take up the middle ground. Each can win in any of the three, but thats where they really shine.Depends on the strategies used, really. In most matches I've seen I would say it were rather the Protoss who dominated early on, and the Zerg who profited more from their lategame units.

[Vonriel]

I think he's talking about Use Map Settings maps, where you can set the computer's AI to be either Easy, Medium, Hard, or Insane. And then there's Custom, which I never really bothered learning about much.

Computer players in melee are actually rather easy to beat; I should know, as because of Battle.net issues (I haven't figured out if my problems are resolved yet) I've been playing a lot against computer players :smalltongue:

[Winterwind]

I think he's talking about Use Map Settings maps, where you can set the computer's AI to be either Easy, Medium, Hard, or Insane. And then there's Custom, which I never really bothered learning about much.Ah, I see. Yeah, that makes sense. In melee, there is just the default AI though.


Computer players in melee are actually rather easy to beat; I should know, as because of Battle.net issues (I haven't figured out if my problems are resolved yet) I've been playing a lot against computer players :smalltongue:That's what I thought, too, until last Saturday, where, amongst all the other kinds of games, we also had a 4v4 match against four computers and lost. Which I still don't understand, since I have already taken on more computers at once all on my own, and won.
As for your BattleNet issues, if you want we could try to find out whether it works now properly right now.

[Neftren]

Just fixed my battlenet issues.

I ended up creating three open holes in my firewall by opening

UDP 6112-6112
TCP 6112-6112

three times :P

[Winterwind]

Just fixed my battlenet issues.
Great! :smallsmile:


three times :PWait, why three times? :smallconfused:

[Leper_Kahn]

Depends on the strategies used, really. In most matches I've seen I would say it were rather the Protoss who dominated early on, and the Zerg who profited more from their lategame units.

I'd say that is absolutely true. That is why Zerg is given a 'ling rush and an overlord. It makes up for the fact the Zerg can just be worked into the ground early game. I think it stems from the fact Zerg is such a gas hog.

[TSGames]

Alright, I created a U.S. East account. I am DnDestruction. I will be on when I can.

[Winterwind]

I'd say that is absolutely true. That is why Zerg is given a 'ling rush and an overlord. It makes up for the fact the Zerg can just be worked into the ground early game. I think it stems from the fact Zerg is such a gas hog.That they are... which is why they tend to expand most from the three races. However, a 'ling rush is a wild card - either it works, or it puts you so far behind you will never recover. Often enough, players don't take that risk. And Protoss with Zealots/Terrans with M&Ms can put very heavy pressure early on a Zerg.
This changes when Lurkers/Mutalisks appear. One of the most feared things for a Protoss player is a "Lurker contain" - being trapped in one's basis due to masses of Lurkers waiting outside, while the Zerg expands all over the map. Psi storms help, but it's still rather difficult to get out of that. And if the Zerg has too many expansions for too long, he will attack with a huge force supported by Ultralisks and/or Defilers. Which is deadly.
Consider, for instance, the combination of Lurkers and Defilers against a Terran player. Units under a Dark Swarm are vulnerable to melee attacks on the one hand, and splash damage while unburied on the other hand only - however, the Terrans have only one unit with melee attack, the Firebat, and that does concussive damage and has few hitpoints, hence is completely worthless against Lurkers. And the splash damage from Siege Tanks won't hurt the Lurkers while they are buried. I have seen Terrans being pushed back right to their base by this combo without being able to do much against it (trying to kill the Lurkers while they move and Irradiation are the only possibilites to stop it).

On the other hand, a Protoss has the strongest units early on. Zealots and Dragoons can easily force a Terran to stay in their base for a good while. They will have to retreat as soon as the Terran has spider mines and Siege Tanks, though.

There are strategies where it is as you say (the 'ling rush you mentioned, for example), but it's by far not the only way to go.


Alright, I created a U.S. East account. I am DnDestruction. I will be on when I can.Great! Welcome! :smallsmile:
(We're growing!)

[Aramil Liadon]

I beat the computer once... No, twice. Once with a zergling rush, once by defending until they spent every single mineral on the map and I was able to take them out without resistance. That was a long game.

Also, I've never been able to use spider mines effectively. I've seen them used as an offensive weapon, but I could never pull it off.

[Winterwind]

Also, I've never been able to use spider mines effectively. I've seen them used as an offensive weapon, but I could never pull it off.It is rather difficult. Generally, I think the Terrans are much more difficult to use than the other two races.

[tannish2]

unless its a game with everyone else as protoss, then you can science vessel, ghost, and wraith(battlecruisers might be substituted here) your way to a win if you have good defences. and you dont even need good micro!

[Vonriel]

I believe you mean Terran, tannish, since the protoss computers tend to be rather stupid with regard to reavers, carriers, and arbiters, the three things that can reliably down the Terran defenses without getting squished to a bloody, bloody pulp. Probably because they don't bleed, but that's beside the point right now. Zerg, the only trouble you'll have is the occasional ultralisk who gets through the 12 siege tanks and bunkers of marines, and guardians, who are very squishy and probably taste good with ketchup. Queens usually take the stupid path and get blown away by missile turrets. Now, Terrans, they absolutely love siege tanks, and tend to use them quite well. Like I said, I've played waaay too many games versus the computers :smalltongue:

Just had a thought: What if the Zerg got a burrowed anti-air unit? I mean, the lurker is essentially a mobile sunken colony with splash damage, so wouldn't it be cool to see a mobile spore colony which releases a cloud of spores? :smallamused: Of course, it wouldn't be able to be a detector... But still.

[cookie808]

thank you so much for the help
I now play 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 games with ease
btw i was reading some of the discussions on stategy in this forum and my way to play is to expand as much as possible and to keep attacks and defenses simple
big power, big numbers always obliterate bases in my experience
6 battlecruisers, 6 carriers, or 12 guardians goes a long way most of the time, although not always, i've always been able to rely on these tactics
this also could just be because i kinda suck and usually take on less experienced enemies, but as i said it has worked for me
also, to have ten SCVs/etc. on you're minerals and 2 to 4 on your gas, you should be economically sound,
but expand as soon as possible
when people leave the game or you play 2v2 on an 8 player map, there are extra empty and mineral/gas rich base areas, i always take over these ASAP,
I usually dont even defend then much. 12 marines/hydralisks/zealots or scouts or something per extra base is all that's necessary
also, you can use these extra bases to keep extra upgrade buildings

[tannish2]

oh im not talking about VS computers. and seriously, someone with ***** rating on Bnet try playing VS a computer in a game they host, then try it with a completely new account and tell me if you notice a difference

[Traveling_Angel]

The problem with Carriers is that they are far to slow, and a good swarm of Scourge will kill em off unless you have a LOT. My favorite is the 12 carriers taken down by 12 Wraiths because someone forgot an Observer.

[TSGames]

The problem with Carriers is that they are far to slow, and a good swarm of Scourge will kill em off unless you have a LOT. My favorite is the 12 carriers taken down by 12 Wraiths because someone forgot an Observer.

What do you tell your ally? "Ooops"?

[Winterwind]

also, to have ten SCVs/etc. on you're minerals and 2 to 4 on your gas, you should be economically sound,Build more of them. Much more of them.
You should generally have 3 SCVs on your gas - that's the optimum number if the main building is as close to the gas as possible - and significantly more than ten SCVs on the minerals. Even when the minerals are obviously saturated with SCVs, still keep producing them, because then you can move a whole bunch of them straight to your expansion as soon as you get one.
Generally, 20+ SCVs per expansion is absolutely appropriate.


The problem with Carriers is that they are far to slow, and a good swarm of Scourge will kill em off unless you have a LOT. My favorite is the 12 carriers taken down by 12 Wraiths because someone forgot an Observer.How about if you remembered building the Observers, but someone does
this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1BnYYRnzN4&mode=related&search=
, this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRtguqz3qCc
or this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9s6UG1HQ5qE&mode=related&search=
instead?
(Yes, Korean progamers and their audiences are crazy)

[Vonriel]

I don't see the need for that many SCVs. 1/2 again as many as you have mineral stacks is sufficient, then when you start on your expansion you can start building more so you have them in time to start mining. Any more than that, and you're really just wasting supplies, I'd think.

[Winterwind]

I don't see the need for that many SCVs. 1/2 again as many as you have mineral stacks is sufficient, then when you start on your expansion you can start building more so you have them in time to start mining. Any more than that, and you're really just wasting supplies, I'd think.In order to maximise the profits from any expansion, you need quite a bit more SCVs than mineral patches, so that every patch is being harvested even when the SCV is transporting the minerals back to the CC. And a surplus is useful, because then you can start using any new expansion with maximum efficiency as soon as it is up - if you start building more workers only then, it will take time until you can get the most out of your expansion.
And considering you might want to expand more than once in a short time period, more workers are even more obligatory.

(The above applies to all races, of course, not only Terrans)

Keep in mind that the goal of expanding is not so much securing a steady income, but to increase income so that one can produce out of more factories at once.

[tannish2]

ya, lets face it, more is better, as long as theyre doign SOMETHING then theres no harm in adding more workers.

[Winterwind]

Let me put it this way.
A few friends of mine I sometimes play with and who are much better and more experienced players than I am (beat me almost every single time if I don't succeed with some cheese like unexpected Dark Templar or so, have twice as many actions per minute, have a better understanding of the game, work as game commentators as their hobbies, and so on) usually end up with 60-80 workers at the end of the game, and they say that's how it looks like for progamers as well. Now, they may be wrong - but given that they know much more about the game than me, the fact that they usually beat me (and quite clearly have more ressources than I do), and the fact that I can see the benefits when I happen to remember producing enough workers, I tend to believe they are right about it.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

yes, professionals do that, the most amount of workers as possible in early game so when you start getting expansions you simply transfer your 'extra' peons to the expa and start mining right away (for Terran and Protoss, not so much for Zerg). Although for some timely builds they skip on peons sometimes.
The number of peons per base depends of the type of base, but usually it is regarded to have 2.5 peons per mineral patch (usually around 25-30), and 3 for gas. Of course, this is only useful if you can spend resources as fast as you gather them. So, this is useful depending on your skill level and your opponent level. If you just want to have fun with friends, don't mind. If you want to get better at the game, you might want to pay attention to it (thought getting mediocre-good at the game takes too much time and effort, not worth really).


btw, my account i think it is Yakkul, i might join the channel one day...

[Winterwind]

yes, professionals do that, the most amount of workers as possible in early game so when you start getting expansions you simply transfer your 'extra' peons to the expa and start mining right away (for Terran and Protoss, not so much for Zerg). Although for some timely builds they skip on peons sometimes.Yeah; Zerg tend to lack the larves in the early game to get as much workers as they would like to without neglecting the army.


The number of peons per base depends of the type of base, but usually it is regarded to have 2.5 peons per mineral patch (usually around 25-30), and 3 for gas. Of course, this is only useful if you can spend resources as fast as you gather them. So, this is useful depending on your skill level and your opponent level. Thank you; I guessed it was about this number, but wasn't sure.


If you just want to have fun with friends, don't mind. If you want to get better at the game, you might want to pay attention to it (thought getting mediocre-good at the game takes too much time and effort, not worth really). Best advice ever.
I once made the attempt at that, spending quite a bit of time playing and watching replays; and yes, I got better, but not nearly fast enough for that to be worth it.


btw, my account i think it is Yakkul, i might join the channel one day...We'll be glad to welcome you, then. :smallsmile:

[tannish2]

why not just start a whatsitcalled? those group thingys that show stuff next to your name when in a chat channel...

[Winterwind]

why not just start a whatsitcalled?Pardon? I can't quite make out what you are referring to?

[Leper_Kahn]

I don't see the need for that many SCVs. 1/2 again as many as you have mineral stacks is sufficient, then when you start on your expansion you can start building more so you have them in time to start mining. Any more than that, and you're really just wasting supplies, I'd think.

There is a reason that only 1 worker can mine from a mineral patch at a time. They wanted to have a max Minerals per second per base. It seems to me like max is better.


why not just start a whatsitcalled? those group thingys that show stuff next to your name when in a chat channel...

I think you might be confusing starcraft for warcraft. There aren't groups in starcraft.

[Winterwind]

why not just start a whatsitcalled? those group thingys that show stuff next to your name when in a chat channel...Oh, a clan!
Yeah, as Leper_Kahn said, the BattleNet supports that only in WarCraft III, not in StarCraft.

[ForzaFiori]

speaking of Warcraft, out of curiosity, how many of y'all also play Warcraft III?

[Winterwind]

I do, albeit not as much. Which one of the two I prefer varies, but I think it's more often StarCraft.
There is a GitP WarCraft group - the thread is not much further below - but it's not exactly organised currently, and it met only once to play so far two weeks ago.

[Neftren]

Anyone up for a game right now?

As for Warcraft, I do have both Frozen Throne and the original W III, although Starcraft is much more entertaining, especially when a mob of Zerglings wipes you out.

TheOldCoyote is online.

[Winterwind]

Sure, why not.
One Winterwind, comin' up!

[Neftren]

Wow, we do have some strange connection issues.

[Winterwind]

To make it even stranger, it seems to work when it's a 1v1 - when Vonriel left, our connection worked fabulously, and when you left, Vonriel and I had no lag either.
So yeah. Really strange.

[Winterwind]

Reminder, tomorrow's the big night again!

I am not quite sure whether I will make it tomorrow. But if possible, I'll try to be there.

[TSGames]

Reminder, tomorrow's the big night again!

I am not quite sure whether I will make it tomorrow. But if possible, I'll try to be there.

I too will try to make it, but I may be doing something of insurmountable importance instead...Sleeping.

[Traveling_Angel]

I will be there in all likelihood.

[Traveling_Angel]

Well, yesterday was fun, even though I only played two games, although the first might be discounted, because some people don't consider a successful Zergling rush a game.

[Winterwind]

Well, yesterday was fun, even though I only played two games, although the first might be discounted, because some people don't consider a successful Zergling rush a game.I don't know these people, I do consider it a perfectly valid strategy. :smalltongue:
Although I really should have become distrustful after DnDestruction suggested Blood Bath and you both selected Zerg... :smallbiggrin:

Oh, right - DnDestruction, my sincerest apologies, I didn't mean to eliminate you in this second game. I tried to pull my forces back when I realised that this was your entire base, but it was too late already... :smallfrown:

[Traveling_Angel]

A local trick here is a "no rush" limit, ie you can't attack for 15 minutes.

[TSGames]

Oh, right - DnDestruction, my sincerest apologies, I didn't mean to eliminate you in this second game. I tried to pull my forces back when I realised that this was your entire base, but it was too late already... :smallfrown:

It's alright. I'm just really terrible at BGH... But next time, maybe I'll try another strategy that will(hopefully) give you a run for your money.

[Winterwind]

A local trick here is a "no rush" limit, ie you can't attack for 15 minutes.I would very, very much prefer if we did never, ever, even mention such a thing as a no rush limit. :smalltongue:
The reasons for my dislike of that concept are legion: I actually like the fights of the early game best by a large margin, I don't really mind being rushed (on a map with longer ways than BB it is much easier to hold against such a rush), and BW strategy involves for me, to a great part, around knowing how to distribute one's ressources between attacking, expanding, upgrading technology and, to a lower degree, defending oneself. The game loses incredibly much of its strategic depth if a no-rush limit is implemented, and its the strategy that makes the game most fun for me: things such as keeping up pressure against an opponent and map-control completely lose relevance.
Besides, one reason why I enjoy StarCraft is the nigh constant action. This is lost when one has to go through 15 minutes of nothing whatsoever happening.
So, I would accept it (albeit reluctantly) if the majority of the group requested that, but my own tastes are adamantly against it. :smallwink:


It's alright. I'm just really terrible at BGH... But next time, maybe I'll try another strategy that will(hopefully) give you a run for your money.Oh, good - I had felt bad throughout the entire evening because of that. :smallwink:

Related with this subject, I would suggest the following thing (I have always used it when playing with my friends): If somebody is about to lose (s)he should say that (s)he surrenders and ally everyone (but without granting vision to anybody), and everyone should ally that person and grant her vision. That way, that person remains in the game and can at least watch (which is at the very least more interesting than having to wait in the channel).
The assumption is, of course, that this person will not abuse this to start to build up again, and will move everything she has left out of the way as much as possible to not influence the game anymore. But I think we can trust each other, right? :smallwink:

And, we need to agree upon what exactly we mean by FFA, because there seems to be a disagreement regarding that. I, for one, assume that it means that everybody is playing against everybody, at all times. tannish2's version of it is that one may ally others temporarily, in order to backstab them later. We need to agree upon which definition we shall use.

[TSGames]

And, we need to agree upon what exactly we mean by FFA, because there seems to be a disagreement regarding that. I, for one, assume that it means that everybody is playing against everybody, at all times. tannish2's version of it is that one may ally others temporarily, in order to backstab them later. We need to agree upon which definition we shall use.

The Tannish2 version is how Risk:The game of Global Domination is played. I'd rather not play FFA that way, unless it's declared beforehand. Maybe we could have FFA and RFFA(Risk Free For All)?

[Cybren]

Typically a game where one can gain allies in play is referred to as diplo rather than ffa.

[Neftren]

A local trick here is a "no rush" limit, ie you can't attack for 15 minutes.

Then whoever is terran just runs around building gajillions of Nuclear Silos and well... total destruction for anyone without three different bases and a huge number of SCVs, Probes etc.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

just read the PM, pity i would have liked to play. If anyone cares, they can add me to msn (profile) for some games, though i'd only be able to play on weekends (war3 too, though im far less experienced in it).

Oh, and regarding rushes, it's a total valid strategy since it's no auto-win strategy. The one that rush is taking a big risk, if it is properly scout, and fails to do damage, it's almost a lost game altogether.

[Winterwind]

I'd rather not play FFA that way, unless it's declared beforehand.Me neither, it gets rather unfair if one is suddenly confronted with an alliance of two players when one has previously adamantly refused to work together with one. If it is declared beforehand, of course, no problem with that.


Maybe we could have FFA and RFFA(Risk Free For All)?Sounds like the best solution.


Typically a game where one can gain allies in play is referred to as diplo rather than ffa.Great, then we even have a short name for that. :smallsmile:


Then whoever is terran just runs around building gajillions of Nuclear Silos and well... total destruction for anyone without three different bases and a huge number of SCVs, Probes etc.Back when I was a complete newbie I played together with a friend against a mutual friend of ours (who is really good) and a friend of his on BGH. By a stroke of luck we managed to eliminate that other guy. So that friend of ours went for this solution: He build so nuclear silos and ghosts that any air attack was impossible (due to mass stopper) and a ground attack was impossible because nukes detonated every 30 seconds at the only entrance to the peninsula he was on, obliterating any forces that might have been passing there.
I don't remember how the game ended, but I think ultimately we left. :smallbiggrin:


just read the PM, pity i would have liked to play. If anyone cares, they can add me to msn (profile) for some games, though i'd only be able to play on weekends (war3 too, though im far less experienced in it).We generally play every Saturday, with me sending out PMs one day before that.
And I really should set up some MSN compatible instant messenger program. Oh, well, as long as we have other players who have that... :smallbiggrin:


Oh, and regarding rushes, it's a total valid strategy since it's no auto-win strategy. The one that rush is taking a big risk, if it is properly scout, and fails to do damage, it's almost a lost game altogether.Right on.


So... I'm bored right now, anyone up for a spontaneous game?

[Winterwind]

Reminder, game night tomorrow! :smallsmile:

[Mr.Moron]

Starcraft eh? So, this open for anyone to join? I've been known to enjoy a game of Starcraft two now and again...

[Korias]

Winterwind: My version of the program is having connection issues with the Net, so could you stop sending me the PMs? I'll post again when I have a working version, but I need my inbox.

[Winterwind]

Starcraft eh? So, this open for anyone to join? I've been known to enjoy a game of Starcraft two now and again...Sure, open for anyone. :smallsmile:


Winterwind: My version of the program is having connection issues with the Net, so could you stop sending me the PMs? I'll post again when I have a working version, but I need my inbox.Whoops, sorry, I forgot. Won't happen again. My apologies. :smallredface:

[Aramil Liadon]

I ask you, what did I ever do to provoke BattleNet? It keeps on trying to kill my computer, even though I've never tried to kill it!

In other words, ugh. No Starcraft for me until I fix it.

[Winterwind]

I ask you, what did I ever do to provoke BattleNet? It keeps on trying to kill my computer, even though I've never tried to kill it!

In other words, ugh. No Starcraft for me until I fix it.That's a strange thing for the Internet to do. :smalleek:
Good luck then!


I'm having trouble connecting with USEast. :smallconfused:
I'll try to fix that, but I might be late due to that. Heck, I already am. :/

[PePe QuiCoSE]

i can't connect either to east
go west?



(pet shop boys fan :P)


edit: i'm on west right now, channel GitP
btw, if anyone wants to contact me i'm on msn too.

[Winterwind]

Oh, sorry, didn't check in the forum anymore after I finally had managed to connect.
I have no idea what happened, but first I could not connect and then, suddenly, it worked out after all. Really strange.

Anyway, missed both your post and your PM. Sorry about that. Ultimately, we played on East after all. Did you find some people to play with on West?

[PePe QuiCoSE]

nope, nobody was around at west. The thing is that East is the only server that doesn't allow me to join, i can join any other server (even privates) and with the game solo or launcher. East is the only server that doesn't let's me play, and it is the first time that something like this happens to me. I think it should be the server overloaded or something of the sort, can't think of another possibility.
Well, might catch you guys some other time then.

[Traveling_Angel]

Well that was fun. Tannish did a good job of turtling. BTW, Winterwind, could you send me the replay of that game?

email:[email protected]

[Deepblue706]

Anyone playing tomorrow, say 6 est?

[Winterwind]

nope, nobody was around at west. The thing is that East is the only server that doesn't allow me to join, i can join any other server (even privates) and with the game solo or launcher. East is the only server that doesn't let's me play, and it is the first time that something like this happens to me. I think it should be the server overloaded or something of the sort, can't think of another possibility.Too bad. :smallfrown:
Well, let's hope it doesn't happen again. I think it was a temporary thing - it took me several attempts, but ultimately I got that connection. Hopefully it will work for you, too. Otherwise, we might want to consider switching to USWest, if that doesn't create any problems for other people, but since we already started a tradition on this one, I'd try to stick to it in order to not complicate matters.


Well, might catch you guys some other time then.Hopefully so. :smallsmile:


Well that was fun. Tannish did a good job of turtling. BTW, Winterwind, could you send me the replay of that game?That game was wicked. :smallbiggrin:
Sent the replay; just so you know, in StarCraft a replay can be opened and distributed (and viewed) in multiplayer also, which is generally simplier than e-mails. That's what I was trying to do yesterday, just when you left. :smallwink:


email:[email protected] that's an interesting coincidence... you know what my favourite game before StarCraft was?
UFO: Enemy Unknown. :smallcool:


Anyone playing tomorrow, say 6 est?I'll be there, probably. :smallsmile:

EDIT: Looking at the above post, I find that I need to limit my urge to place smilies. :smalleek:

EDIT2: I might not make it today, or be late, after all. I'll be out with friends this evening, and I'm not sure whether I'll be back in time.

[Traveling_Angel]

Yes, you read it right. I'll agree, Xcom/Ufo is sweet. I've never beat it (or even got Heavy Plasmas for an entire squad) but within the first 10 minutes, I knew that I was gonna beat it someday. The curse of the gamer is to never turn back when faced with a challenge. Plus, if I set it to German, I can study my German in the meantime.

And I will need to figure out how to do Bnet sharing. We'll have to figure that out next time.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

well, i still can't join east... damn it
gonna try resintalling the game :(
so 6 est is... now? within an hour?

edit: According to blizzard i have a temporary restriction to USEast since everything else works fine. I hope no-one is using my cd-key :(

Blizzard FAQ

Step 3:
Temporary Restrictions:

Please try to connect to all four Battle.net Realms (USEast, USWest, Europe, and Asia). If only one Battle.net Realm is inaccessible to you, then it may just be a temporary connection problem or a temporary restriction. Battle.net access may be temporarily restricted for one of the following reasons:

- Spamming text in the chat channel (often associated with bots)
- Rapidly connecting/disconnecting to Battle.net (often associated with bots)
- Repeated attempts to use an invalid CD-Key
- Repeated use of an incorrect password may lock an account login for your protection
- Repeated use of third-party programs (hacks) - these include but are not limited to sending bad packets, flooding the server(s), and the use of hack programs


http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?articleId=20792&categoryId=2645&parentCategoryId=2612&pageNumber=1

[ForzaFiori]

6 est is roughly 1:30 away.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

so, it should be around now then...
well, i still can't connect to east (bummer) so i'm @west #GitP , nick Yakkul if anyone's on.

[Deepblue706]

It's about 6:30 now - I'll be on until 9, latest...

[Neftren]

I thought it was Saturdays?

[TSGames]

I thought it was Saturdays?

It is. In addition to that, you can feel fee to post whenever you feel like playing a game.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

yes, it is. this is extra.
oh, bugger... east still doesn't work.

[Winterwind]

Yes, you read it right. I'll agree, Xcom/Ufo is sweet. I've never beat it (or even got Heavy Plasmas for an entire squad) but within the first 10 minutes, I knew that I was gonna beat it someday. The curse of the gamer is to never turn back when faced with a challenge. Plus, if I set it to German, I can study my German in the meantime. Heh, yeah, that's true, I played around with these language settings for similar purposes myself. :smallbiggrin:
I would comment more upon XCom/UFO... but that would derail this thread more than a Cyberdisc bombarding the train. :smallwink:


And I will need to figure out how to do Bnet sharing. We'll have to figure that out next time.You just enter a game - if you don't have the map (replays counting as maps for this purpose) you download it automatically.


It is. In addition to that, you can feel fee to post whenever you feel like playing a game.Exactly so.


edit: According to blizzard i have a temporary restriction to USEast since everything else works fine. I hope no-one is using my cd-key :(Whoa, that would suck. :smallfrown:


yes, it is. this is extra.
oh, bugger... east still doesn't work.Seems like that problem is much more serious for you than it was for me on Saturday - I didn't have any problems connecting today.

So, what shall we do?

[Redpieper]

Hi, new player here
I don't have broodwar unfortunately, nor much experience.

Warning: Venting ahead
But people on battlenet. have been annoying to say the least, I played 5 games now where everytime people drop out near the start. One game, a guy cheated but then dropped out so i wouldn't have a lose. I wouldn't mind the loss but i did mind the cheating (I found out when I watched the replay). :smallmad:
Warning: Venting before.

Sorry it just really annoyed me, anyway my question was if anybody minded a regular starcraft game with a new player?

Thanks,

[Winterwind]

Sure, we can include some of these, too, although I would heartily recommend you try to get hold of a BroodWar copy as soon as possible - it is both a nice continuation of the story, and worthy as an expansion, both in the strategic options and in the variety of custom maps.

As for people on BattleNet, well, gamers tend to be a rather... special kind of Internet users much more often than others, unfortunately. Another reason why we have a group of our own here. :smallwink:

[ForzaFiori]

this sucks. I went to download all the patches and stuff (I haven't played a game online in forever), and apparently there was a problem, and to be able to fix it, i have to uninstall Starcraft. Here's the thing though. I have no idea where my copy of the original is, nor do i have the CD Keys.

[Aramil Liadon]

Someone has my CD key!
In fact, more than one someone. It's what happens when you lose the case and re-install using a random CD key you found on the Internet.

So, do I reinstall again, and just type in numbers until one works?

[Winterwind]

this sucks. I went to download all the patches and stuff (I haven't played a game online in forever), and apparently there was a problem, and to be able to fix it, i have to uninstall Starcraft. Here's the thing though. I have no idea where my copy of the original is, nor do i have the CD Keys.Oh, that sucks indeed. :smallfrown:

Good luck with finding them!


Someone has my CD key!
In fact, more than one someone. It's what happens when you lose the case and re-install using a random CD key you found on the Internet.

So, do I reinstall again, and just type in numbers until one works?And this might suck even worse. :smalleek:


I think finding a working key by brute force might take a while. I know there are key generator programs, but I believe they often do not work so well for the BattleNet itself, merely for installing the game to play singleplayer - apparently, the BattleNet is secured in some better way. Still, I have a friend who plays on a key generated by a program, so both of you might try that - just google for a StarCraft key generator.
Otherwise, I guess your only chance is buying a new copy of StarCraft and Broodwar. Luckily, these are available for $10 or less nowadays.

[Leper_Kahn]

Well if you only want single player:
CD-Key: 1234567890123... and so on until it fills up is a CD Key.

[Winterwind]

Indeed, that works as well, but won't get you into the BattleNet. (It's useful if one gives away BroodWar copies one has no key for anymore to friends, so that they too may get infected with StarCraft fever!)

[Everto]

Hi, I'd like to register or whatever my BNet name is Evert0.
I mostly play custom games, but I have played a couple of melee games against computers. So, pretty inexperienced but seeing as there are other people here who are not so good that won't be much of a problem. Also I play Terrans, but I am still learning the fine points of nuclear warfare.

[Winterwind]

Welcome to our little group, then. :smallsmile:

Seeing that you are from Belgium, note that we are playing on the USEast server - assuming you played on the Europe server so far, you would have to create a new account on USEast to join us.

And don't worry too much about your art of nuking, or the lack thereof; it's not essential for playing a fine Terran anyway.

[Everto]

Well... I'm up for a game now if anyone is interested.

[Winterwind]

I'd love to, but unfortunately I don't have the time right now. Good luck finding a partner though. You can use the list of people with known BattleNet-account names in the first post of this thread to check whether one of them is online, but I'm afraid your chances are rather slim, considering that most of them are Americans, and it's still forenoon in America right now.

[Redpieper]

Thanks,

Oh and my name is Redpieper also on BattleNet.
Now I'll restart and see if starcraft goes back to working (it crashed)

[PePe QuiCoSE]

damn, i still can't join east... gonna look if i find a friend so as to get a extra cd-key to see if it's that.

Anyway, if anyone is up for a game, im on west, channel GITP

[Mr.Moron]

Bah! Looks like I missed this week, I got carried away with something else, heh.

[Traveling_Angel]

Sorry, I had a debate Tournament. See ya Next week though!

[Winterwind]

Usual reminder, a new Saturday approaches, and with it, our weekly StarCraft session!

I'm not sure whether I will make it this time - I'm still waiting for a mail to find out whether I will have a roleplaying session this Saturday or not (sorry, but real life friends I haven't seen for a while have superceeding priority over anything :smallwink: ). If I don't make it, have fun - otherwise, we'll see each other in the BattleNet!

(oh yeah - if you enter the channel and there's noone there, check whether someone from the list is online - they might have gotten impatient and started a game already, or something)

[Traveling_Angel]

Sorry, I can't come again. But keep sending me those PMs, cause one of these days I may come!

[Redpieper]

Sadly my sister is celebrating her birthday today (hey it's saturday here!)
Last week I had to work, but hopefully next week :smallsmile:

Hope you all have a blast!

[Winterwind]

I got that roleplaying session today confirmed, so, I must pass today as well.

Let's hope anyone shows up, to keep the tradition alive. :smallbiggrin:

But next week, there should be no more obstacles to keep me from playing with you.

Have fun, whoever shows up! :smallsmile:

[Edanor]

Reinstalling time! Swoosh. I remember when it took me 30 minutes to stick this baby on, now it's more like 30 seconds.

[Winterwind]

Welcome! :smallsmile:
And, yeah, times have changed, but the awesomeness remains. :smallbiggrin:

[Inhuman Bot]

Iam sometimes on and I mostly play custom maps. My old account was to incative so it got deleted. I'll put my account name up asap.

[Winterwind]

Welcome. Feel like at home; don't step on the zergling. :smallcool:

[Traveling_Angel]

Don't feed the 'ling either. It goes berserk. And then some.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

the gods of broodwar had granted me again access to their eastern sanctuary, so i am back again for some games. Though it seems that i will have to wait till next week.
Unluckily yesterday i was still at the university studying, so i couldn't come around my comp to play. More unluckily, it seems this will probably be the case next saturday.

[Winterwind]

the gods of broodwar had granted me again access to their eastern sanctuary,Hey, now that's great news! :smallsmile:


so i am back again for some games. Though it seems that i will have to wait till next week.
Unluckily yesterday i was still at the university studying, so i couldn't come around my comp to play. More unluckily, it seems this will probably be the case next saturday.Keep in mind you can post in this thread whenever you feel like playing; just because we have one fixed time when we meet weekly doesn't mean we can't play spontaneously out of schedule as well.

[Edanor]

I wish I had time for spontaneous playing! My science teacher is a slave driver!

[PePe QuiCoSE]

sure WW, but usually there's no-one to answer in time
if you are on, i'll wait for you in the channel
for an easier way to contact me:
msn: pepequ (at) gmail dot com

[Winterwind]

Aww, crap - as if to prove you right, I somehow completely missed there were new posts in this thread. Which usually never happens to me while browsing the forum, since this is one of the subforums I check with priority. Sorry!

Though admittedly, I'm feeling horribly sleepy today. No idea why, usually I'm more of a night person.

Oh well. Maybe one of the following days. :smallsmile:

[Winterwind]

Reminder, tomorrow/today, depending on your location and time of reading this post, is our usual BroodWar session.

As opposed to the past weeks, I should finally be able to make it again. :smallsmile:

[PePe QuiCoSE]

damn it, finally i was at home able to get to play, but missed due to RL stupidities. Stupid real life...

anyway, meet ya guys in another occasion

[Winterwind]

damn it, finally i was at home able to get to play, but missed due to RL stupidities. Stupid real life...

anyway, meet ya guys in another occasionHey, we're still here, so if you have time now, come on in - although it's kinda empty here right now...

[Drago]

Well this is awesome, count me in. my bnet name is Commodore_Drago.

[Winterwind]

Welcome once again, Drago. :smallsmile:

Wow. I'm leaving only now, and there are still people playing. And here I thought the WarCraft group's session was long :smallbiggrin: .
...of course, I must be insane to stay up this long, it is long bright again here. :smalleek:
Anyhow, thanks for an awesome evening, night and morning! :smallbiggrin:

[Traveling_Angel]

Okay, I Should make it next week. *Prays*

[Winterwind]

Awesome!
Slowly, the activity of this group is increasing, too. I think that were about nine or ten people who fluctuated in and out at Saturday over the course of the session.

[Setra]

Hey, I haven't played Starcraft in a long while so I'm probably rusty but I'd like to join.

*five minutes later* Turns out I lost my discs for a second, but I found em >.>;

Anyways I had to actually get into the game to check my username, which is Setra.

Anyways, hope to see everyone Saturday.

[Winterwind]

Welcome to our humble circle, make yourself a home. If I may show you around, there you have the Cerebrates, slithering around at the snack bar, the Executors are over there, discussing whether there is such a thing as a Contratoss, and the Commanders are upstairs in the Officer's Lounge, plotting how to retake the snack bar. :smallcool:

[Winterwind]

So, reminder, tomorrow's our weekly BroodWar session. Same time, same place as always.

I think we've had a few people from the WarCraft group coming over to join us as well? I'd like to point out, then, that the BroodWar group is scheduled one hour later than the WarCraft one.

Again, not sure whether I'll make it. Probably I will, though.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

On a different note, i'd like to share this with you guys.

In South Korea, there are professional gamers that play Starcraft for a living, with tournaments paying up to 40.000 won (U$S 42.920)

Today there was played the finals of the MSL, the most important Starcraft tournament (with the OSL). The finals were played between Bisu, the 2 times defending champion, and Mind, a royal roader* that defeated in the semis Savior (3 times MSL champion and has previously lost a final against Bisu)

*royal roader means he went all through the qualifiers to get into the tournament, wasn't a seed in the bracket like Bisu or Savior.


So, with no further ado, here are the youtube links to the games, a best of 5 series played on the maps: Zodiac, Blue Storm, Python, Loki II and Zodiac for the final match. Spoilers so you can watch them in order without knowing the final result in advance.


Game 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO1bFwsRLR4
Game 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3y1SQ5TFziE
Game 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-Tr8MlZdKI
Game 4:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53kDW0h7wec
Game 5:
No game 5, Mind won 3-1. This was such a huge upset that you can hear the crowd barely making any cheers for him winning.

[Winterwind]

*sigh*
This goes to show how very much out of touch with the current BroodWar scene I am. I barely ever heard the name of Bisu and never heard of Mind (which is okay, I guess, considering he's a newcomer), and Savior is the only one of those three I ever saw a game of. None of them is one I would have expected in the finals.

Where have all the great names gone, Boxer (yeah, I know he's off to the army now), Reach, JulyZerg, Nal_Ra, Nada, Iloveoov, Xellos...?

Anyway, thanks for the links, PePe_QuiCoSE. I'll definitely watch those. :smallsmile:

[Setra]

*kinda hums* Three of us right now >.>

[Prince Gimli]

I'm would like to join as well.

I'm posting this while the rest is still duking it out, I got a sunken on my creep and then the lings bounced in, so that was the end of me in that match ;).

My account name is Malderon.

Edit: And how did the 2v2v2v2 end? :)

[Setra]

I'm would like to join as well.

I'm posting this while the rest is still duking it out, I got a sunken on my creep and then the lings bounced in, so that was the end of me in that match ;).

My account name is Malderon.

Edit: And how did the 2v2v2v2 end? :)
Winterwind and Mr. Moron utterly destroyed everything.

I was the last survivor, managed to take out a tidy number before going down too.

Also, I ruined Mr. Morons clever one liner by surviving his nukes >.>

Anyways, to those I left, sorry to leave so suddenly, but didn't feel like watching another 1v1.

[Krytha]

Wow I love starcraft and I forgot how insane some of these players are. I love the korean commentary though. So intense and excited! These guys are better than NFL/NBA insert major sport here commentators.

[Mr.Moron]

Good Games today! I stayed much later than I usually do, heh. I really should practice more, so I can keep up with the rest of the group.

[Winterwind]

Excellent games, even. Thank you all very, very much, this was an awesome evening/night for me. :smallsmile:

Welcome, Penthar, I hope you had a good first impression of our group. :smallwink:

Krytha, I take it you want to join as well? Welcome! :smallsmile:

Wow, our group is growing and growing. If this keeps up we will be forced to have two games at a time! :smallbiggrin:

Also, in other news, Winterwind uses much too many smileys. :smalleek:

[Leper_Kahn]

Excellent games, even. Thank you all very, very much, this was an awesome evening/night for me. :smallsmile:
:smallcool:



Welcome, Penthar, I hope you had a good first impression of our group. :smallwink:
:smallredface:



Krytha, I take it you want to join as well? Welcome! :smallsmile:
:smallwink:



Wow, our group is growing and growing. If this keeps up we will be forced to have two games at a time! :smallbiggrin:
:smalleek:



Also, in other news, Winterwind uses much too many smileys. :smalleek:
:smallsigh:
:smallfrown:
:smallmad:
:smallfurious:

[Prince Gimli]

Excellent games, even. Thank you all very, very much, this was an awesome evening/night for me. :smallsmile:

Good games indeed, only too bad I was a bit squished :smallwink:


Welcome, Penthar, I hope you had a good first impression of our group. :smallwink:

Thanks, and the first impression was good :smallcool:

And oh my, your reaver/sair assault was nasty :smallamused:.

Now, to go and practise to get the rust off my SC skills (as far as I have them anyway).

[Winterwind]

:smallcool:
:smallredface:
:smallwink:
:smalleek:
:smallsigh:
:smallfrown:
:smallmad:
:smallfurious:I guess I deserved that. :smallbiggrin:


Good games indeed, only too bad I was a bit squished :smallwink:Don't worry, you'll squish'em next time. :smallwink:


Thanks, and the first impression was good :smallcool:/me is glad about that.


And oh my, your reaver/sair assault was nasty :smallamused:. Corsairs are my favourite unit (and I will never forgive Blizzard for scraping them in SC2! :smalltongue: ); unfortunately, I only very rarely get to a situation where I think it makes sense to use them.


Now, to go and practise to get the rust off my SC skills (as far as I have them anyway).Nah, it wasn't so bad. :smallwink:

[PePe QuiCoSE]

Where have all the great names gone, Boxer (yeah, I know he's off to the army now), Reach, JulyZerg, Nal_Ra, Nada, Iloveoov, Xellos...?Boxer is captain of the AirForce team for starcraft (yes, that's right, the Korean military has a Starcraft team competing in proleague) and has got quite some nice victories. He's still the emperor :D
Nada made both MSL and OSL, July and oov qualified for the MSL 16 bracket and rA and Xellos met in quarter finals (Xellos lost to Bisu). Reach made a good run in the previous OSL.
So yes, they are still around, but not dominating as before. The one that's clearly off the map i Yellow..[NC]
Nice games guys, sure it was fun :smallbiggrin:. I'm sorry for boring you with my constant harass against WW for 1on1 games :P
Oh, and WW in the pro-scene the corsair has become almost a necessary unit against zerg for scouting and harassing overlords.

[Winterwind]

Boxer is captain of the AirForce team for starcraft (yes, that's right, the Korean military has a Starcraft team competing in proleague) and has got quite some nice victories. He's still the emperor :DI heard about that military team... that's simply hilarious. :smallbiggrin:
So he's still doing fine? Good... the first Korean match I ever saw was some finale of him against oov. *checks* Must have been the EVER OSL finale 2004.


Nada made both MSL and OSL, July and oov qualified for the MSL 16 bracket and rA and Xellos met in quarter finals (Xellos lost to Bisu). Reach made a good run in the previous OSL.
So yes, they are still around, but not dominating as before. The one that's clearly off the map i Yellow..[NC]Nice to hear that. Reach is my StarCraft idol. :smallbiggrin:


Nice games guys, sure it was fun :smallbiggrin:. I'm sorry for boring you with my constant harass against WW for 1on1 games :PThat last one was exceedingly exciting. I was still trembling two games later from all the adrenaline. :smallbiggrin:

I sure hope we'll do that again some time soon. :smallsmile:


Oh, and WW in the pro-scene the corsair has become almost a necessary unit against zerg for scouting and harassing overlords.I used to build a Stargate and a single Corsair for exactly these purposes against Zerg every time, but at some point I found that going for either Citadel/Archives for Speed, Psi Storm and Archons or Robotics for Observers first seemed to yield better results for me.

[Winterwind]

Okay, reminder: Tomorrow's our weekly session again! :smallsmile:

I hope to see you all - and PePe_QuiCoSE, I hope for some battles tomorrow. :smallamused:


I watched these Korean games by now... geez, Bisu got really unlucky with his Reaver, didn't he? In the first game, one shot went for the tank, not for the SCVs, the second one detonated in the void - and that game was close towards the end, if he had done more damage with the Reaver, it might well have gone quite a different way.
The last game though... wow, I really didn't think Mind could turn this one around, not with so few Goliaths against so many Carriers. I'm not even sure how he accomplished this; excellent timing of his attack, I suppose, with Bisu attacking when he should have defended and defending when he should have attacked.
Also, forgetting to add an Observer to the Carriers hurt him badly.


By the way, is there any way to send a PM to more than five people at once? It would kinda safe me some time every week...

[PePe QuiCoSE]

Game 1 was not so much about Bisu's reaver (Mind defended pretty well, expecting that build from Bisu) but the flawless timing attack and unit positioning in his push. Also Bisu did some micro mistakes, but the credit goes to Mind for taking him down so fast.
Set 5, the game breaker were those few wraith with cloak that did enough damage and got enough time. Also Mind had done nice damage before carriers came along and exploited his upper hand late game.
AFAIK, no, there's no way to send PM to more than 5 people. You can try contacting people by other means though (e-mail, msn, aim, etc)

I'm already in the channel (with tannish and Malderon). I think i'll inaugurate the GtiP SC matinee (i was 2 hours early :P)

edit:
hey, just putting up more SC things here. If there's interest in trying different maps, here's a page that got loads of cool maps for SC:BW
Broodwarmaps.net (http://www.panschk.de/mappage/newsscript/viewnews.php)

[Prince Gimli]

Wow, that was just an epic gaming evening. I don't know about you, but I had loads of fun :smallcool: :smallsmile: And from a Starcrafter's point of view, educational too.

Minor linguistic details I happened to notice: One makes mistakes, one does not do mistakes. Sorry if I appear preachy or something, but just wanted to let you know :smallsmile: And past tense of to do is did, not done.

[Leper_Kahn]

Personally I liked the last game I played where the only evolution chambers were assassinated!

[PePe QuiCoSE]

Minor linguistic details I happened to notice: One makes mistakes, one does not do mistakes. Sorry if I appear preachy or something, but just wanted to let you know :smallsmile: And past tense of to do is did, not done.My bad, i should get more practice in my english (it's not my first language)

PD: why educational?
btw, if anyone is up for a game, i'll most probably be on useast this afternoon (16.00 here)

[Winterwind]

Wow, that was just an epic gaming evening. I don't know about you, but I had loads of fun :smallcool: :smallsmile:
Glad to hear that, and, yes, it was. :smallbiggrin:


And from a Starcrafter's point of view, educational too.How so?


Minor linguistic details I happened to notice: One makes mistakes, one does not do mistakes. Sorry if I appear preachy or something, but just wanted to let you know :smallsmile: And past tense of to do is did, not done.I know this was not addressing me, but yeah, if someone notices me screwing up the English language, please tell me so, I want to improve! :smallwink:


Personally I liked the last game I played where the only evolution chambers were assassinated!The Hydra Revelation game? Heh, these are fierce, aren't they? :smallbiggrin:


btw, if anyone is up for a game, i'll most probably be on useast this afternoon (16.00 here)Give me a few minutes yet, then I will come.

[Prince Gimli]

Perhaps education is a strong word, but when playing these matches I also learn new things.

By the way, anyone know of any fun soloable starcraft UMS maps? Maps like Aeon of strife are fun, but require a group to complete.

[Winterwind]

Marine Special Forces would come to mind. These are soloable.

If you want to get them, c'mon online. :smallwink:

[Prince Gimli]

Unfortunately Marines Special Forces SE is multiplayer only, if you start the level while playing alone you lose. It is still a great map though.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

the map, versa life or something like that, that we tried a couple of times all together gives the remaining units to the amount of players, so you can play it either with 1 or 5 players.
check some map pages like staredit for maps of the sort, i don't know one right now...

[Chaos Evoker]

Oooh I'd like to join this, next time I have the chance to sign onto Battle.net I'll have to look you guys up!

[Aramil Liadon]

And I, have given up. The CD-key thing is too annoying, so I'll just wait for Starcraft 2.
Have fun, guys!

[Winterwind]

Oooh I'd like to join this, next time I have the chance to sign onto Battle.net I'll have to look you guys up!Welcome! Make yourself a base! :smallsmile:


And I, have given up. The CD-key thing is too annoying, so I'll just wait for Starcraft 2.
Have fun, guys!Pity you have to go. Well, let's hope to see ya in StarCraft 2, then. :smallwink:

You know, though, you can get a new StarCraft and BroodWar copy complete with a shiny working CD-key for around $10 or $15, I believe... :smallwink:

[Leper_Kahn]

I want to thank you Winterwind. It's because of you that this group stays together. Anyway, thanks a bunch! :smallsmile:

[Winterwind]

:smallredface:
Thank you for these words, Leper Kahn, they alone make it worth it. :smallbiggrin:
Besides, it's not like I don't have an interest of my own in the well-being of the group. :smallwink:

[Moongoat]

Ill play, ive been practicing on some computer enemies and i think my skills have been refreshed enough that i have a chence against human enemies

the only thing is, im never really sure when ill be on. i might make it to the saturday game or i might not.

question. im in central time so does that mean the game is it 4:00pm on saturday for me?

my name on battlenet is moongoat13

[Vael Nir]

I have starcraft again... 5 pm EST is 11 pm here, but since it's on saturday I may show up from time to time.

I'll be playing under the handle eU)NiCk, see you online. :-)

[PePe QuiCoSE]

nice to see more people joining! :)
btw, for those who have different times, i'll be joining the channel tomorrow 2 hours early than planned (12pm instead of 2pm pacific time, -8 GMT,) and will be leaving "early".

[Moongoat]

ill probabl be getting on battlenet at around 7:30pm central time tonight, if anyone wants to join me.

[Winterwind]

Aye, welcome in the group, both of you. :smallsmile:

To answer your question, our regular meeting time is:
2 PM Pacific = 3 PM Mountain = 4 PM Central = 5 PM Eastern = 6 PM Atlantic = 11 PM Central European

Just edited this into the first post of the thread, too. (I would do it for all other time zones, too, but I think this might be a tad too much work, especially since the time zones have different names throughout the hemispheres anyway :smallbiggrin: )

PePe, I think I won't make it two entire hours early, but I will try to come as soon as possible in that case.

[SirSigfried]

I've just bought a copy of SC yesterday, and you can put my name on the list for next Saturday.

acct name: Libertarian_SDR

[Winterwind]

Alright! Welcome aboard, Lib! :smallsmile:

[Vael Nir]

saturday was fun, yes... although I hope not to disc in the middle of this weeks ffa. :smallsmile:

[Winterwind]

Let's hope so :smallsmile: - though there is always some unlucky chap who gets the disconnect.

I think I'll be playing a few games with friends right about now, so if anyone happens to be in desire of a few StarCraft games right now, we'll be there - at least for a while. (We might be spontaneously switching between Star- and WarCraft though)

[Murska]

I like playing Starcraft, but haven't found many players. I'd like to join, although I probably won't be joining very often, because of being in a difficult timezone. Anyway... I'm Murska in Battle.net as well.

[Winterwind]

Alright, welcome! :smallsmile:

As for being in a difficult time zone, keep in mind the sessions tend to be long - as in, they start officially at 5 PM EST, but the first players often show up one to two hours early (Yakkul specialises in this), and often go as long as to midnight EST or later. So, the time frame in which you could come, if you desired so, is rather large.

[Murska]

Okay. Anyone want to play right now?

[Winterwind]

Sure, why not. :smallcool:

[Winterwind]

So, remember folks, tomorrow's our weekly session again! :smallsmile:

[Vael Nir]

I won't be able to make it after all, some friends want to go into town tonight... hope you have some good games. :)

[Winterwind]

Okay, we will try to - and you have fun with your friends. :smallsmile:

(Hey, at least I will stand a chance at scoring a few victories today now! :smalltongue: )

[PePe QuiCoSE]

...but the first players often show up one to two hours early (Yakkul specialises in this)And to honor those words, i'm already online.

(Hey, at least I will stand a chance at scoring a few victories today now! :smalltongue: )Yeah, me too :D

[Drago]

I don't know if, or how long, I'll be on today, need to finish my character for some good old DnD tonight, and then the session could quite possibly still be going after you're all offline :smalleek: (god I hope not.)

[nooblade]

I might join after finals next week. If I can get my cd back from a friend, anyways.

It would be a new account, of course. I'll have to see if the names I'm thinking of are taken. I guess the post could've waited, but oh well.

[Leper_Kahn]

Sorry I couldn't make it. I might not make it next week either. There's a lot going on.

[Winterwind]

I don't know if, or how long, I'll be on today, need to finish my character for some good old DnD tonight, and then the session could quite possibly still be going after you're all offline :smalleek: (god I hope not.)What's so bad about a long RPG session? I've found that generally, the longest sessions are the best (at least, the most memorable sessions I attended to were also the longest ones generally).


I might join after finals next week. If I can get my cd back from a friend, anyways.

It would be a new account, of course. I'll have to see if the names I'm thinking of are taken. I guess the post could've waited, but oh well.Alright, welcome! :smallsmile:


Sorry I couldn't make it. I might not make it next week either. There's a lot going on.I might quite possibly not make it next week either. Not sure yet, though.

[Murska]

Sorry for not making it, Independence Day celebrations going on here. :P

[Winterwind]

Let's see (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independance_Day)...

From Tanzania?

[Murska]

Let's see (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independance_Day)...

From Tanzania?

No. Finland.

[Drago]

What's so bad about a long RPG session? I've found that generally, the longest sessions are the best (at least, the most memorable sessions I attended to were also the longest ones generally).

Oh, long sessions are the best. It's when they run till 4 in the morning that it can get a little unnerving. On that note, the session was a blast. :smallbiggrin:

[nooblade]

Is lag very much of an issue for people living on the west coast (USA)?

I hate that stuff, it spoils all of my otherwise perfectly-timed abilities and focused-attacks.

Not that I wouldn't play, I'm just wondering how awesome it will be.

[Winterwind]

No. Finland.Ah, I see. The choice was between Tanzania, and the celebrations starting early, and either Finland or Ireland, with the celebrations going on for many days.


Oh, long sessions are the best. It's when they run till 4 in the morning that it can get a little unnerving. On that note, the session was a blast. :smallbiggrin:That's the standard mode for us, when we play (of course, we tend to start rather late, and we talk a lot before each session; sometimes, we may also play Munchkin first, so when we start, it's usually something like 8 or 9 PM).
Well, congrats on a fun session, then. :smallsmile:


Is lag very much of an issue for people living on the west coast (USA)?I can't speak for the west coast (though I have never heard somebody complain), but if it is no issue for us Europeans, I don't think it should cause problems for you.


I hate that stuff, it spoils all of my otherwise perfectly-timed abilities and focused-attacks.I consider this a challenge. :smallcool: :smallwink:


Not that I wouldn't play, I'm just wondering how awesome it will be.Oh, it will, no worries about it, it will. :smallcool:

[Leper_Kahn]

Is lag very much of an issue for people living on the west coast (USA)?

I'm on the west coast and I haven't found a problem with lag in these games yet.

[PePe QuiCoSE]

lag issues is not a problem with the gateway but with one's own connection. If your connection is decent and you don't have any weird router problems, you should never have problems with it.

[Winterwind]

So, tomorrow's our session again. :smallsmile:

I hope I will be able to come; I very likely will, but I'm not 100% certain.

[Cynan Machae]

Oh, a GitP Starcraft Group :smallcool:

My new bnet username is CynanMachae (my old one [Lord] got deleted or something :( )

I'll try to see if I can come tomorrow :smallbiggrin:

[Prince Gimli]

Would anyone know a place where I can download melee maps the professional starcrafters play on? I tried googling some but no luck so far.

Thanks in advance :)

And I will probably be there tomorrow too.

[Cynan Machae]

Here's a few, well recent ones:

http://iccup.com/getfile.php?file_id=23

[Winterwind]

Welcome! I think we might have to spawn more overlords to accommodate so many people! Make yourself a home! :smallsmile:

[Prince Gimli]

We shall have to whip the khalai workers to build more pylons for our probes to warp in :).

And thanks for the maps Cynan.

[Winterwind]

Just downloaded it myself. Awesome, this should put an end to all these different versions of Luna, Paranoid Android and all the others. Thanks, Cynan Machae :smallsmile: .
I suggest everyone downloads this, it will come in handy. I'll include the link in the first post, too.

...hmmm... I know only about half of these maps. Oh well - the world moved on, I guess. :smallbiggrin:

(In other, unrelated news, my secondary drive died today. Rest in peace, old pal. :smallfrown: )

EDIT: What? No Nostalgia? Appalling! :smalltongue:

[Cynan Machae]

No problem :smallsmile:

Yea, many old pro maps aren't there. I had a map pack somewhere with many of the old ones, I'll try to upload it.

Edit: Here it is: http://qc-net.com/david/promaps.zip
More of them, but Nostalgia wasn't their in the Iccup map pack :( But I added it anyway, I had a version somewhere :smallbiggrin:

[Murska]

Sick... And feverish... Ouch.

[Winterwind]

So, several things:

1. A heartily welcome to our newest member. Greetings, Orange Zergling, make yourself a home! :smallsmile:

2. Thanks for the link, Cynan! I edited it into the first post as well.

3. Get better soon, Murska!

4. Wow, did we break a record yesterday, or what? I just counted - there were 14 people from the group online throughout the session, and at the apex it were 10 or 11 at once! Yay! :smallcool:

[The Orange Zergling]

:D

Last night was fun, I learned a lot. Glad to be in the group.

[Winterwind]

Glad to have you with us. And, yeah, it was fun. :smallbiggrin:

[Murska]

3. Get better soon, Murska!


Thanks. I'm somewhat better today.

[Winterwind]

I'm currently playing a few games with friends, and we likely will be playing yet for quite a few hours, so if anyone wants to join us, c'mon in. :smallwink:
(We might, maybe, switch to WarCraft at some point, but probably not)

[Winterwind]

So, reminder, tomorrow's our next session again. Our X-mas session, so to speak. :smallbiggrin:

I am not 100% certain whether I'll be able to attend, but probably, I will.

[Mr.Moron]

I'll probably be playing tonight and tomorrow during the day, if anyone wants to do some 1v1.

[The Orange Zergling]

I will most likely show up tomorrow, however I may not be able to be there at the start, meeting a friend tomorrow and I don't know how long it'll go on.

[Cynan Machae]

I'm leaving tomorrow for the holidays, going back home, but I'll try to be there if my bro didn't loose his SC CDs :smallamused:

[Vael Nir]

well, I don't have anything planned for tonight (yet^^) so I'll probably be showing up again.

[Winterwind]

I'll probably be playing tonight and tomorrow during the day, if anyone wants to do some 1v1.I have to study a bit more today, but if I should finish soon enough (or not feel able to learn anymore), I will come online early to see whether somebody's there. No guarantees though.


well, I don't have anything planned for tonight (yet^^) so I'll probably be showing up again.Oh noes! We're doomed! :smallbiggrin:

Nah, just kiddin'... hope to see ya, Nick, there's no better teacher than defeat. :smallwink:

[Murska]

Online already. :P

[PePe QuiCoSE]

Heh, and i was going to say that i will be early again (entering and leaving).
Sorry about the silence last time, i got hang up watching slam dunk on youtube and then got kinda sick (low pressure? no idea how it's said in english) and then i went out. Not my brightest idea.

Anyway, logging in in 2mins

So, time for more vids!

OSL finals between Jaedong and Stork, Zerg and Protoss. 2 MSL before, Bisu defeated Stork in the finals. In the semifinals Stork had his revenge, by ruthlessly crushing him 3-0 and claimed his spot in the finals. Although Jaedong has shown impressive results in Proleague (Team League), he has never qualified for either OSL nor MSL before. He is now walking the called "Royal Road", a player that qualifies from 0 for the league and plays for the championship (quite rare).
It is to note that respectively, ZvP and PvZ are Jaedong and Stork worst match-up. Still, this is because their other match ups are simply uncontested by no one at the moment.

Now, the games:

First spoiler is the game Links and the inner spoiler a little comment of mine (don't read before watching the games!)

Game 1 - Map Persona. This map has permanent dark swarm in different places.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GT89tV70BT0
Big all-in by Jaedong and Stork answered appropriately.


Game 2 - Map Katrina. Dynamic Map with center expos, having a "hurricane" layout.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8MNSuybotw
Good match. Not even with a big harass advantage can Stork match Jaedong.


Game 3 - Map Fantasy II. Funny map were every starting position is different form the rest, similar to previous pro-maps.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbOkdREdpGo
Macro game with an abrupt ending


Game 4 - Map Blue Storm. Innovative map with a close middle path and wide open areas for expos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecco11S3kMo
Good game, the lack of middle game harass from Stork got him outmacroed. Jaedong is the OSL Royal Roader!


Game 5 - Map Persona. Yes, again.
No game 5

[Prince Gimli]

Once again a fun evening/night :smallsmile:.

Anyone online the coming week? I'll be checking now and then to see if there's someone from GitP online to play with.

And now to bed. Sleep well everyone. *yawn* Zzz...

[Winterwind]

So, time for more vids!Cool! I'll watch them some time during the day, later on. :smallsmile:


Once again a fun evening/night :smallsmile:. Indeed it was. :smallcool:


Anyone online the coming week? I'll be checking now and then to see if there's someone from GitP online to play with.X-mas holidays are usually roleplaying time for me, but depending on my friends' time schedule, I might be up for a few games one evening or the other.

Actually, quite probably one of the evenings suiting me best would be today. Not sure whether I'll have time, but quite probably I will - perhaps around 3 or 4 PM EST, or so.

[Winterwind]

Just using a short break in our Christmas Eve festivities to come here - I want to wish a very merry Christmas to all of you, those who I play regularly with, those who attended just a few times, and those who were not able to attend so far. May you all be spending a time just as happy as I do with your loved ones, and only the best wishes to you. :smallsmile:

[Vael Nir]

yarp! merry christmas, time to eat myself sick!

[Prince Gimli]

Merry christmas and a happy new year to all :smallsmile:

And a lot of good food too, but not too much :smallamused:

[Murska]

Merry Christmas, let the Zerglings leave you alone and the Carriers be merciful. :smallwink:

[Winterwind]

So, here's the reminder, tomorrow's our session once again.

I won't be able to come this time (between Christmas and New Year's is roleplaying time for Winterwind! :smallsmile: ), so I just wish you all a great slaughterfest. :smallcool:

Next week, I'll be with you again.

[Murska]

Ready? Se(a)t! STARCRAFT!

[SithLackey]

Hi all. I'm a closet StarCraft player of moderately low playing ability (I think). Assuming I'm around next Saturday at 5 I'd love to join. However, I'm not so great. I've never played a human before, I'm unfamiliar with the layout of battle.net, and I struggle against the computer on FFA. Any advice you guys could provide would be great. I prefer Zerg, but I tend to run into problems on the ground (especially with tanks, reavers, zealots, etc.). Also, if you could direct me to some of the less-godlike players next saturday, I'd much appreciate the lack of total pwnage.