On Sun, 30 Jun 2002 19:33:41 GMT, Eric Byers
<eihjelmt@NOSPAMonline.no> wrote:
>On Sun, 30 Jun 2002 16:50:07 GMT, Marco <marcosbox@hotmail.com>
>muttered something along the lines of:
>
>>Fairly obvious you have never even played TA (you thought there was only
>>one resourse).
>
>There is. Calling supply a resource doesn't make it one...
>
>By your logic, Starcraft has three resources; Crystals, Vespene (which
>is a proper second resource, insofar that it can't be generated by the
>first resource),
Well, if metal makers bother you that badly, you could play games with
them disabled. Likewise, if the 'unlimited' aspect of metal patches
bother you, you could probably play a map with no patches and just
carcasses to grab for metal.
Admittedly, it might be hard to find players for such a map/game
setup, but on the SC side, well, over half the maps on non-ladder
Battlenet look like $$$ to me...
>and supply/control/PSI (you pay a fee in crystals to
>get some of it, which increases the amount of units you can have -
>pretty much what energy does in TA, wouldn't you say? The only
>difference being that they call it a resource instead of "build supply
>depots/overlords/pylons"
>
I dunno about comparing energy directly to supply. Don't most mobile
units generate as much energy as they use? Ignoring oddities like the
Core Battleship, of course. For units, energy income is important for
their creation usually, not their upkeep.
Yeah, some emplacements often require energy, like the ever-hungry
Bertha or Vulcan. But then, that just adds to their charm and
uniqueness, if you're a TA fan.
The point has some validity, but it's not a fair picture to paint.
One has to work as hard to keep energy/metal coming in at appropriate
ratios in TA for unit creation as minerals/gas in SC.
*snip snip*
>>There are many reasons why a certain game might be more popular than
>>another - *other* than gameplay.
>
>Sure. But personally I think the gaming world, and especially the
>masses of RTSers *generally* are a bit brighter than the audience of
>said musicians. Maybe due to the fact that strategy-gaming tends to
>require some knowledge on both strategy and computers, while all
>mainstream music requires is an IQ above 25...
>
I dunno. I think half the reason (1) SC stays so popular is the
nearly console-like ease of getting to Multiplayer. Dial-up to your
ISP, fire up SC, and away you go.
The casual gamer outnumbers the hard-core by an order of magnitude in
any thriving game. That's why those games thrive. One in ten of
those casual gamers get deep into the game, joining the game
community. If you can't keep joe blow buying, the community
inevitably shrinks as gamers find other interests. So you aim for the
general public as much as any of the gaming otaku.
You've also fallen into the trap of thinking that 'my clique (RTS
gamers) is smarter/better than the general public.' Us vs. Them (or
Us vs. the World) is older than humanity, but just because we evolved
to think as homicidal, bigoted primates doesn't mean we have to
celebrate it.
(1)- Of course, the other half of why Starcraft thrives is that it is
a good game. But it's GUI is still silly by comparison to TA, which
preceded it. Though it differentiates species/sides much better, to
give it its due. Any other games do as good a job on that front,
besides the WC3 beta? And could one do so w/o spell units/status
ailments, which TA lacks anyways?
*snip last pointless verbal volley*
Jonathan Fisher
hoping he's being fair to both sides...
----------
paranormalized man, subnormalized otaku
ROT13 and then delete all instances of the letter after P to email
Yeah, I've been getting my alphabet mixed up the past couple months.
Sorry.
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