The original Starcraft and Brood War are collectively my most-played games ever. I've put untold numbers of hours into SC1/BW over the last 20 years, most of which have been spent playing custom maps online. I've never been a huge RTS fan, but Starcraft was the exception for me because of its awesomely rugged sci-fi trappings, memorable characters, unique three-race design, and stellar online in the form of Battle.net 1.0. Even before watching competitive play in recent years opened my eyes to just how deep the rabbit hole goes with BW's core gameplay, the game was always on my shortlist of favorite games of all time for the sheer breadth and diversity of user-created content (custom maps) that sprang from it over a 20-year period. Other than Warcraft III, no other game has come close to matching the free exchange of user-created content that players enjoyed on Bnet with Brood War in its prime. The combination of an approachable level editor and a user-friendly online interface resulted in a perfect storm of content creation and discovery where mapmakers pushed the boundaries of what was possible within SC1's RTS engine.As you can imagine, I was as hyped as anyone when Starcraft 2 was announced for release over a decade after Brood War. My mind raced with possibilities of what the sequel would bring, but ultimately when the game launched my PC wasn't up to the task of running it. So I put off buying the game for a while, and over time various issues that I had with the direction of the sequel resulted in more and more hesitation on my part.Right out the gate I wasn't crazy about SC2's new polygonal presentation and chunky, colorful art style. I absolutely adore Brood War's gritty sci-fi look, and the way that many iconic units, structures, and settings translated over to SC2's new style felt like a downgrade to me. Suddenly the scale of units seemed all out of whack, and many buildings and vehicles resembled toy versions of their former selves. The game's campaign was also rife with cringe-inducing writing, despite being gorgeous to look at most of the time. While the original game's campaign is arguably the best in the genre, the sequel often opted for empty spectacle and leaned way too heavily on tired tropes throughout.With SC2, Blizzard made it very clear that their focus with the new game would be to push it heavily as the premiere eSport, and for a while they were certainly successful in this regard. While the game's popularity as an eSport died down once MOBA's essentially supplanted the RTS genre for most players and viewers, no one can deny that it had a good run there as a compelling competitive game. The problem is, this focus on competitive RTS gameplay meant a shift away from what I loved most about SC1: the custom maps scene. SC2 launched with a rather problematic UI for custom maps that effectively killed the entire scene before it ever had a chance to develop. A popularity-driven user interface made it hard for people to discover new maps, and that discouraged mapmakers from wasting their time crafting something that few people would ever see. Aside from the troubled online UI for custom maps, the campaign editor was simply far less accessible this time around. It was more robust than ever, but the barrier for entry washigher than it was in Brood War and scared away swathes of potential creators.Even people who cared little about custom maps and focused solely on the competitive side of Starcraft started to see the sequel as a step down from its predecessor. Brood War's inherent technical limitations resulted in a sort of happy accident: a perfect balance between micro and macro play that yielded some really dynamic, entertaining matches between skilled players. While SC2 was still unforgiving and challenging on a competitive level (it is an RTS, after all), many players and observers saw the game's more straightforward, macro-centric gameplay as less engaging than what Brood War offered. This is not necessarily the consensus of SC fans by any means, but it's definitely a common sentiment that has persisted even after SC2's two big expansions.To Blizzard's credit, they have made numerous improvements not only to the core gameplay of SC2 over the years but also to the online interface for custom maps. Most saw it as too little too late (and I suppose it was), but their redesign of the Arcade made it much easier to discover new maps and fill lobbies.Also to Blizzard's credit, they've done an excellent job reviving Brood War to some small extent with their Starcraft: Remastered release. I can't tell you how happy I am to be able to play Brood War in 2018 on official gateways in 1080p widescreen with (mostly) faithfully updated high-res artwork for everything in the game. I'm also happy to have SC1 live in the Blizzard Launcher along with all of their modern releases, giving it some much needed visibility as a F2P game with an optional paid Remaster add-on. It's a testament to Brood War's enduring quality that it continues to see such support from a developer of Blizzard's stature, and really we have South Korea's ongoing love of the game to mostly thank for that.