Geisterkarle Profile Blog Joined September 2008 Germany 1056 Posts #1



For Christmas I visited my parents and family - like many others too. And eating too many cookies aside, my mother "forced" me to go through all the stuff that is still in my old childhood-room, because she wants to use it for herself.

So in throwing out old stuff you find the usual: a ~10 year old pocket flask with still something inside ... stupid knick-knacks ... or a sneakily hidden (inside a box of an old hard drive) porn DVD I don't remember even buying in my youth...



But also I stumbled upon an old

I don't know why I kept it. But maybe it was because of that, what I want to present you: In there was a beta test of Starcraft! Just to be clear for the younger ones,: I'm talking Starcraft, NOT Starcraft:Broodwar!

And I thought, the TL.net and the biggest Starcraft-community around is interested what people thought about this game nearly 18 years ago! (spoiler: They disliked Zerg-rushes! )

Of course it is in German, but I tried my best to translate the main text to English (always below the pages). There are a few boxes around with additional text/infos, but 5 pages were enough for me



So, here goes nothing:





Starcraft Beta-Test

The Top 1000



"We have to stay outside".

Only 1000 (randomly) selected people from all over the world and some journalists were lucky enough to experience the "internet-baptism" of Starcrafts Battle.net.

Alongside the expected positive feedback there were also some critical voices about the supposed RTS-blockbuster of the year...







If you memorized the special 16 pages of PC Games issue 9/97, you could start playing Starcraft directly - graphics, controls and game concept were not seriously changed since our visit at Blizzard in July last year. They promised all kinds of things beforehand: three completely different races, a comfortable user interface, maps that are 4-times larger than in Warcraft 2, worldwide leaderboards and tourneys in the Battle.net, network and internet support for up to 8 players, a map AND mission editor and so on and so on.

And Blizzard kept its promise - all those features are available, but not all at the desired date. All those delays are the reason that Starcraft will be in 2D. If you remember the first announcment from Blizzard, they talked about a 3D-RTS named Starcraft.



Why? For what reason? Wherefore?



Why this beta test? First, the developers want to test the compability with the craziest hardware-configurations. On the other side they want to hear the feedback from the "guinea pigs" about the balancing. Are the units of the three races in a balance? Is there a powerful counter to every strategy? Because some of those questions were answered "no", Blizzard released some patches. For example the air units are now stronger.



Comparatively good



The often-quoted "Warcraft in space" analogy is not that wrong. For example the ressources. All races are mining crystals, representing a counterpart to the wood of Warcraft 2. Energy ("Vespene Gas") leaks from Geysirs and is collected with refineries. But people will be surprised about the big differences between the races. There are the "Terrans", and many will make their first steps with them. Barracks, weapon factories, science facilities, power plants, nuclear missile silos, bunkers, academias - you feel at home at once. The units (marines, flamethrowers, tanks, battlecruisers, battlerobots etc.) also are familiar. No wonder that the Terrans are playing the main role for the first ten of overall thirty missions in the single-player mode. Terrans can build their structures anywhere they want and even "relocate": most buildings are transportable, can lift off the ground and land at a designated spot.



Mass Gathering



Optical and gameplay-wise the most extravagant race is the Zerg, genetically modified creatures in alien-style: slippery, snarling and incredible aggressive. Single units are breed from Larva that scurries around a "Hatchery". Zerg building are morphed by Zerg-drones and can only created on the slimy, violet substance named "Creep". This Creep is seeping out of "Hatcheries" or so-called "colonies" that you have to put down in frequent distance or it will get cramped in your base. Zerg are good for players that like to win their fights with overwhelming masses; also they have the advantage of flying Zerg-Overlords (needed to build additional units) to scout the map from the very start of a match.

Protoss - introduced as the "oldest and most powerful race of the galaxy" - put down "Pylons" (some sort of beacon) and you have to put your building in their "radius" and then "beamed down" in your base from their home planet Aiur.







The Protoss (thanks to supernatural powers equipped with extremely strong spells) are the only race with self-regenerating shields. Only after you have destroyed those shields, ground-units or spaceships are actually damaged. Time works for the Protoss. The completion of weapons, buildings or upgrades takes longer than for the other races. If Protoss are attacked early into the game, most of the time they are out of chances. Advanced players that want to use less tactical potential but stronger units, these creatures are their first pick.



What's all THIS in aid of?

Inexperienced players or people switching over from Warcraft 2 will be overwhelmed by all those incredible variety of units, buildings and upgrades; the latter (shields, fire-power, visibility or attack range and various "magic spells") are available to all present units after research finished. Someone who wants to master Starcraft and have realistic chances at internet-matches has to train, train, train. Even passionate Zerg-fans will recognize after a while that masses of cheap Zerglings are not working as well as the special abilities of some Zerg-Queens. And if you let a Protoss take its time to build up and upgrade, those simple "tricks" will not help you anymore. Zergs are especially vulnerable to air attacks and decimated quickly.



Like an assembly-line

The controls got meaningful and obvious updates to its "fantasy" predecessor: On the one hand production buildings of the Terran and Protoss can queue up to five units (just click the production-icon multiple times). The state of a unit will be displayed directly at the figurine in a status bar. Inexperienced players have a help-function, if they move the courser over an icon they will see all needed installations (compare: Dark Reign).







As usual with a right-click you can attack enemies or collect resources. It is possible to link groups of up to 12 units to a hotkey, but the group-numbers are not displayed in the beta. Also missed is the ability to queue the construction of multiple buildings like in Total Annihilation.



Chaos Theory

What about the graphics? At least in the 2D area it is one of the best to exhibit for now - incredibly detailed, partial rendered, partial drawn and equipped with extensive animations. In technical comparison with competing 3D real time strategy worlds and even "Age of Empire" the isometric world of Starcraft (640x480 pixels, 256 colors) can't keep up. Counterpart the virtual-bird's eye view of Warcraft 2 the perspective is a little bit more angled, leading to more detailed surroundings. The disadvantage of that are overlapping objects; quite a few units are difficult to differ from each other on the terrain; especially Zerglings, Hydralisks and Larva. Also Terran units nearly "disappear" in the surroundings. And if some Protoss Carriers arrive and send out their Interceptors there will be no controlled fight for all involved anymore. Further critic: At least in this beta version, Blizzard payed no attention to collision detection; units just run through friend and foes, but that is not stopping some of them to get stuck between buildings or minerals.







All that glitters is gold?

Two big controversies were unearthed during the beta test, that are connected to the mentioned balance-problems: On one side the obvious "Zerg-Rush" is criticized (like a "tank rush" in C&C with dozens of little, cheap but quite effective Zerglings and Hydralisks), on the other side Blizzard removed the "Mind Control" ability from the Protoss after heavy complaints - with the consequence that many supporters of this high-end feature also complained. "Mind Control" stands for a spell that enables Protoss-players to take control of enemy units. Meaning: When a Terran attacked with Battlecruisers, those ships were just "stolen" and so changing the balance of power massively in Protoss favor. For now it is open if Mind Control will make it into the features of the final version.



As one pleases

If it doesn't cost money, it's not worth it? Counter-evidence is provided for months now by Blizzards free of charge Battle.Net that runs since the release of Diablo. A Starcraft player can expect the usual chat rooms and the new ladder (a sort of leaderboard) and also 12 different game-modes with up to eight(!) players. For example "Greed" (who collects the most resources in X minutes?) or "Slaughter", where you will win if you have the most "kills" in a certain time frame. In addition to the usual alliances real team work is possible (multiple players control the same base), but demands a certain degree of discipline, organization and constant communication. There should be mutual consent about questions like "In which direction should we expand?" or "Who attacks with what units?". Of course you can limit those chats to your team only and so the competitors are not warned in advance.



Crash Test Dummies

Starcraft is running surprisingly fast and stable on Battle.Net. As long as there were only three or four people playing there were next to no crashes in out test-games. Obvious rule of thumb seems to be the more players and units take part in a match, the more is the likelihood that the game will crash with an error message but no advanced warning. But even if you are annoyed about all those incidents: always remember that it is exactly the reason of this beta-test to fix those problems.

Because many highly-upgraded cheaters spoiled the party for many Diablo players on the Battle.Net, chief programmer Mike O'Brian promises: Especially in regard of the ladder, fairness will be secured, because all player-data will be managed by Blizzards servers and not on the local hard-drive. Furthermore misuse will be prevented by a password, that you have to define when registering an account.



--------

I missed my 1000. post for this, but oh well I hope you enjoyed it anyway! Sorry for the German title. But there is a reason for that!For Christmas I visited my parents and family - like many others too. And eating too many cookies aside, my mother "forced" me to go through all the stuff that is still in my old childhood-room, because she wants to use it for herself.So in throwing out old stuff you find the usual: a ~10 year old pocket flask with still something inside ... stupid knick-knacks ... or a sneakily hidden (inside a box of an old hard drive) porn DVD I don't remember even buying in my youth...But also I stumbled upon an old PC Games magazine (probably Germans biggest magazine for PC gaming). Issue 3/98; even with original CD!I don't know why I kept it. But maybe it was because of that, what I want to present you: In there was a beta test of Starcraft! Just to be clear for the younger ones,: I'm talking Starcraft, NOT Starcraft:Broodwar!And I thought, the TL.net and the biggest Starcraft-community around is interested what people thought about this game nearly 18 years ago! (spoiler: They disliked Zerg-rushes!Of course it is in German, but I tried my best to translate the main text to English (always below the pages). There are a few boxes around with additional text/infos, but 5 pages were enough for meSo, here goes nothing:"We have to stay outside".Only 1000 (randomly) selected people from all over the world and some journalists were lucky enough to experience the "internet-baptism" of Starcrafts Battle.net.Alongside the expected positive feedback there were also some critical voices about the supposed RTS-blockbuster of the year...If you memorized the special 16 pages of PC Games issue 9/97, you could start playing Starcraft directly - graphics, controls and game concept were not seriously changed since our visit at Blizzard in July last year. They promised all kinds of things beforehand: three completely different races, a comfortable user interface, maps that are 4-times larger than in Warcraft 2, worldwide leaderboards and tourneys in the Battle.net, network and internet support for up to 8 players, a map AND mission editor and so on and so on.And Blizzard kept its promise - all those features are available, but not all at the desired date. All those delays are the reason that Starcraft will be in 2D. If you remember the first announcment from Blizzard, they talked about a 3D-RTS named Starcraft.Why this beta test? First, the developers want to test the compability with the craziest hardware-configurations. On the other side they want to hear the feedback from the "guinea pigs" about the balancing. Are the units of the three races in a balance? Is there a powerful counter to every strategy? Because some of those questions were answered "no", Blizzard released some patches. For example the air units are now stronger.The often-quoted "Warcraft in space" analogy is not that wrong. For example the ressources. All races are mining crystals, representing a counterpart to the wood of Warcraft 2. Energy ("Vespene Gas") leaks from Geysirs and is collected with refineries. But people will be surprised about the big differences between the races. There are the "Terrans", and many will make their first steps with them. Barracks, weapon factories, science facilities, power plants, nuclear missile silos, bunkers, academias - you feel at home at once. The units (marines, flamethrowers, tanks, battlecruisers, battlerobots etc.) also are familiar. No wonder that the Terrans are playing the main role for the first ten of overall thirty missions in the single-player mode. Terrans can build their structures anywhere they want and even "relocate": most buildings are transportable, can lift off the ground and land at a designated spot.Optical and gameplay-wise the most extravagant race is the Zerg, genetically modified creatures in alien-style: slippery, snarling and incredible aggressive. Single units are breed from Larva that scurries around a "Hatchery". Zerg building are morphed by Zerg-drones and can only created on the slimy, violet substance named "Creep". This Creep is seeping out of "Hatcheries" or so-called "colonies" that you have to put down in frequent distance or it will get cramped in your base. Zerg are good for players that like to win their fights with overwhelming masses; also they have the advantage of flying Zerg-Overlords (needed to build additional units) to scout the map from the very start of a match.Protoss - introduced as the "oldest and most powerful race of the galaxy" - put down "Pylons" (some sort of beacon) and you have to put your building in their "radius" and then "beamed down" in your base from their home planet Aiur.The Protoss (thanks to supernatural powers equipped with extremely strong spells) are the only race with self-regenerating shields. Only after you have destroyed those shields, ground-units or spaceships are actually damaged. Time works for the Protoss. The completion of weapons, buildings or upgrades takes longer than for the other races. If Protoss are attacked early into the game, most of the time they are out of chances. Advanced players that want to use less tactical potential but stronger units, these creatures are their first pick.Inexperienced players or people switching over from Warcraft 2 will be overwhelmed by all those incredible variety of units, buildings and upgrades; the latter (shields, fire-power, visibility or attack range and various "magic spells") are available to all present units after research finished. Someone who wants to master Starcraft and have realistic chances at internet-matches has to train, train, train. Even passionate Zerg-fans will recognize after a while that masses of cheap Zerglings are not working as well as the special abilities of some Zerg-Queens. And if you let a Protoss take its time to build up and upgrade, those simple "tricks" will not help you anymore. Zergs are especially vulnerable to air attacks and decimated quickly.The controls got meaningful and obvious updates to its "fantasy" predecessor: On the one hand production buildings of the Terran and Protoss can queue up to five units (just click the production-icon multiple times). The state of a unit will be displayed directly at the figurine in a status bar. Inexperienced players have a help-function, if they move the courser over an icon they will see all needed installations (compare: Dark Reign).As usual with a right-click you can attack enemies or collect resources. It is possible to link groups of up to 12 units to a hotkey, but the group-numbers are not displayed in the beta. Also missed is the ability to queue the construction of multiple buildings like in Total Annihilation.What about the graphics? At least in the 2D area it is one of the best to exhibit for now - incredibly detailed, partial rendered, partial drawn and equipped with extensive animations. In technical comparison with competing 3D real time strategy worlds and even "Age of Empire" the isometric world of Starcraft (640x480 pixels, 256 colors) can't keep up. Counterpart the virtual-bird's eye view of Warcraft 2 the perspective is a little bit more angled, leading to more detailed surroundings. The disadvantage of that are overlapping objects; quite a few units are difficult to differ from each other on the terrain; especially Zerglings, Hydralisks and Larva. Also Terran units nearly "disappear" in the surroundings. And if some Protoss Carriers arrive and send out their Interceptors there will be no controlled fight for all involved anymore. Further critic: At least in this beta version, Blizzard payed no attention to collision detection; units just run through friend and foes, but that is not stopping some of them to get stuck between buildings or minerals.Two big controversies were unearthed during the beta test, that are connected to the mentioned balance-problems: On one side the obvious "Zerg-Rush" is criticized (like a "tank rush" in C&C with dozens of little, cheap but quite effective Zerglings and Hydralisks), on the other side Blizzard removed the "Mind Control" ability from the Protoss after heavy complaints - with the consequence that many supporters of this high-end feature also complained. "Mind Control" stands for a spell that enables Protoss-players to take control of enemy units. Meaning: When a Terran attacked with Battlecruisers, those ships were just "stolen" and so changing the balance of power massively in Protoss favor. For now it is open if Mind Control will make it into the features of the final version.If it doesn't cost money, it's not worth it? Counter-evidence is provided for months now by Blizzards free of charge Battle.Net that runs since the release of Diablo. A Starcraft player can expect the usual chat rooms and the new ladder (a sort of leaderboard) and also 12 different game-modes with up to eight(!) players. For example "Greed" (who collects the most resources in X minutes?) or "Slaughter", where you will win if you have the most "kills" in a certain time frame. In addition to the usual alliances real team work is possible (multiple players control the same base), but demands a certain degree of discipline, organization and constant communication. There should be mutual consent about questions like "In which direction should we expand?" or "Who attacks with what units?". Of course you can limit those chats to your team only and so the competitors are not warned in advance.Starcraft is running surprisingly fast and stable on Battle.Net. As long as there were only three or four people playing there were next to no crashes in out test-games. Obvious rule of thumb seems to be the more players and units take part in a match, the more is the likelihood that the game will crash with an error message but no advanced warning. But even if you are annoyed about all those incidents: always remember that it is exactly the reason of this beta-test to fix those problems.Because many highly-upgraded cheaters spoiled the party for many Diablo players on the Battle.Net, chief programmer Mike O'Brian promises: Especially in regard of the ladder, fairness will be secured, because all player-data will be managed by Blizzards servers and not on the local hard-drive. Furthermore misuse will be prevented by a password, that you have to define when registering an account.--------I missed my 1000. post for this, but oh well I hope you enjoyed it anyway! There can only be one Geisterkarle