Lonjuruder

Clickity-clicking on each of my swarm of zerg queens in turn to zap enemy siege tanks with their spawn broodling instant-kill thingie... Was maybe the most horrible example of painful click-festing I've ever experienced, in 30-odd years of gaming.

In WCIII, you'd do the same thing with the whole group selected, and each unit would cast their spell in turn, picking whichever one was closest to the target for you. Now I'm sure at your play level you have mastered the SC interface to a point that these micro tasks don't give you trouble... But I need the help. Hey, I turn 40 next month - Cut a geezer some slack!

 

I played both games *a lot* (thousands of ladder games), and can't think offhand of a single thing the SC interface had over the WCIII one. Now if you said that the factions were more interesting, gameplay had a certain je ne sais quoi, or whatever - I might be inclined to agree. SC was an awesome game, and I await SCII with baited breath! (When the heck is that coming, anyway?) But the interface was simply - Dated, imo.

 

We may just have to agree to disagree on the "non-auto-casting features StarCraft has is what makes competitive gaming so intense, and that's what I love about it". I know some people think this way, but you'll never convince me that fast reflexes and optimized keyboard configurations are what makes the best strategy gamer!

Keep in mind too, that "The majority of the Starcraft community" are probably silently playing WCIII and waiting for SCII to come out and draw us back. (Or SCII may be their first RTS game!) Not to diminish the expertise and contributions of truly hard-core SC folks who have stuck with it all these years, but I'm sure Bliz wants to make a game that will sell to many more than the current regular SC players.

 

The best games of any sort are intuitive and accessible. A perfect RTS will translate the "general"s strategic thoughts into unit responses as seamlessly as possible. As the player, I want to concern myself with asessing the enemy's moves and organizing the best counter - Not worrying about what button to push or losing a huge army simply because my hand slipped on to the wrong key. I want to command an army of reasonably intelligent units who know how to fight and just need my direction at the strategic level - Not "Unit one, attack enemy unit B with your gatling gun. Remember to turn the safety off! Unit two, move to point X and then attack enemy unit C with your missle launcher." I think it was Sun Tsu who said something about how real wars are won off the battlefield - i.e. by Strategic thinking, not individual unit tactics.

 

Telepathic interface go! For WoW too!! (I know I'll never be any good at WoW PvP because I can't be bothered learning the keyboard tricks you need to use to properly kite while shooting, etc. That stuff just isn't my idea of fun, and I play games for fun.)

 

Maybe WCIII (the interface, that is) just suits a player like me better, and SC just suits a player like you better. Vive la difference - And let's hope Bliz is successful at satisfying both groups (as much as you ever can)!

I see your perspective, and I agree with your statement to an extent. I think StarCraft is a game that has various levels to it. If I were a casual gamer, even when I first started playing, I remember that there was a lot of clicking and Spawn Broodling'ing Siege Tanks would take forever and most likely they would be killed by Irradicate or Air units before you got them all off. However, you can do what you said about WCIII in StarCraft once you group your Queens (Say Ctrl Grp 1) and by using the Shift+Select key you can run through them very fast. Here is an example.

Boxer vs Nal_ra -

At a casual, play for fun level I believe that WarCraft III is more simplistic and straight forward, probably a lot easier to understand what's going on in the interface where as all the StarCraft buttons are the same color, yellow. However, I do think that the speed at which you perform / react would still play a factor in WCIII in terms of Micro Management. I don't want to come off as if I'm taking anything away from WCIII, I've played it a little and it was alright, I didn't find it as fast paced as StarCraft and that kind of turned me off. I also didn't care for the defensive options the game held. I think another factor is what you said before, WCIII is newer, the interface is more advanced.

However, StarCraft at a competitive, league gameplay (SC ladder was the same as regular melee, except ranked) such as International Cyber Cup, World Game Tour, Team Liquid Tour, etc where general knowledge of the keyboard and hotkeys are second nature is where I want to argue that StarCraft is more strategic and an overall in depth RTS. I totally agree with your take on RTS being intuitive though, and a pretty cool game which loses the base buildings and lets you build from one structure and is based more on positioning and squad makeup vs. opponents is Dawn of War 2. I've really liked playing that game lately, it reminded me of a mix between SC and WCIII without stepping on each others toes.

I think my ranting is pretty much a repeat of your post now that I look at it, and I think we should play some SC 2v2 for fun sometime soon! You should also check out DoW2, which I've annoyed the crap out of Ajax with over the last two weeks. But yeah, to each game their own, if we all liked the same thing I guess we'd all be playing the same game.

PS: Sorry for off-topic reply!

http://www.voltaggiojohnson.com/uploaded_images/bb-736864.jpg

what is it good for!

Absolutely nothing! Uh-huh!

Bliz has always seemed really good about tinkering with their UI to perfect it. I remember when WC3 came out, what a huge improvement it was over Starcraft or previous Warcraft games (autocast spells, control groups, etc.) It really did a good job of pushing the micromanagement and can't-click-fast-enough-gah! into the background, and letting the player get more into the game.

I've been impressed with their attempts to mainstream various successful user-community-created addons into WoW (scrolling combat text, extra action bars, etc), even if they didn't always catch on (WoW voice, that is a great idea conceptually at least).

 

Staying the best in an industry as competitive and progressive as gaming takes more than a catchy vision - It requires a whole lotta ongoing attention to detail, even (especially?) for stuff that seems really menial. And deep pockets. Does anyone do those better than Bliz?

I would have to disagree on the StarCraft side of things. Although, I rarely used the mouse to click and only hotkeys, I've played StarCraft since release, I've won Eastern Canada WCG Qualifiers three years in a row and been invited to nationals. I would have to say that the UI for SC is vastly superior to WarCraft III. I can understand the differences, and the non-auto-casting features StarCraft has is what makes competitive gaming so intense, and that's what I love about it. That is why the majority of the StarCraft community wanted it to remain that way for SC II and not take the WC3 approach.

However, as old as StarCraft is we are still seeing updates from Blizzard. They are definatly a company that likes to satisfy it's users (except Diablo 1? ) The WoW UI is awesome, the ability to customize it is vastly superior, in my opinion, to any other MMORPG. They really do listen to criticism and what the community wants, it's why community sites like teamliquid.net and gosugamers.net have played such a large part in forming the changes we see coming from Blizzard.

So yeah... I agree with pretty much everything you said except about StarCraft! I r haz to defend mah game.

I played it for awhile. I played with Ajax's brother, it was fun but it wasn't as smooth as WoW, the characters moved like robots and the quests were hard to complete in some instances. The User Inferface was awkward and players who started out got bored easily.

I did a quick search and I couldn't find another post that talked about this insanely funny machinima. I have had it as my signature for a few days, but it's small and I think it deserves much more attention due to it's hilarity. It has some vulgar themes and there is a lot of internet slang ("WTF") curseing involved, but I think the story is a unique and funny one to follow. Ajax and I have been watching them for the past few months and love them. What do you guys think about it?

Here is the play list to all of the episodes, my personal favorite is the "Conflict" episodes, part 1 and 2.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=7BF6D85EEDCD43D4

That sounds very very gross...

My StarCraft would load before I even clicked it!

I think it's going to be awesome. I've been a pretty big Trek fan (I don't dress up and go to conventions ) and enjoy the shows a lot. I've seen all of them and own all the movies, I just hope they do justice to Kirk and his time at Star Trek academy. I'm also wondering if they decided to write William Shatner into the script for a cameo. I know they said it would be a possibility, and I hope they do. I was talking to someone in gchat the other day about Shatner, and when you're talking about Star Trek, he is the tip of the pyramid. It would be nice to see him in the movies, at least for a few seconds.

Would it be alright to have my 3 toons in as F&F?

Hey Ana, remember my mage, Dokii from Newfie Crew?

Josh is a really cool guy. I've known him since I was a kid. He can't beat me up, but he does claim hes gonna take ninja classes so I guess anything is possible.

 

Hes a pretty good player, although hes focused more on the pvp side of the game in the past.

 

Hes a cool guy to play/talk/chill with. He makes friends really easily. I think he would fit in very well, would be great to play along side him again.

- Can't help but feel he intentionally ignored the family part. lololololol. I'll get him with the ROFLKNIFE at my wedding.

Randomly Generated Names FTL! . That's what Lonjuruder was, it sounds French. I can't remember why I kept it. I think it was because it sounded funny.

I'll grab it tonight when I get home, have to reactivate my account. On a side note, I really had fun with my Paladin in PvP and my Mage in PvE. I was wondering if there has been any changes in the play styles? When I left people seemed to favor Paladin tanks over Warriors and Paladins going Ret in PvE weren't too liked. Is it still the same way? If possible I probably would like to play my Paladin in all of its aspects, eventually. PvP/PvE and it's three trees, but that's a long way off. I'm only being a pain and asking because Andrew is afk on xfire.

1. RL Name: Joshua McAuley

2. Age: 23

3. Main Character's Name: Lonjuruder / Heirmes / Dokii

4. Class: Warrior / Paladin / Mage

5. Level: 70 / 70 / 70

6. Alts (class, name, level): Shadow Priest, Sherawh, 41

7. Previous Realm (if not from Skullcrusher): N/A

8. Name of your last and/or current guild: I honestly don't remember, I think it was Minions of Death. This wasn't because I have been in a lot of guilds, but because I took an extended break from WoW and can't remember what guild I was last in.

9. Reason for leaving that guild: I left WoW in general, it got boring and I was working too much to keep my account alive.

10. Reason for wanting to join FP: Ajaxthegreat/Andrew, he's my cousin and I'd like to join and play with him. I'll probably be casually on now and then but eventually I would like to re-app for a raiding spot if that's possible.

11. FP Sponsor (say "None" if you have none): None, but I'll beat Andrew up if he doesn't vouch for me.

12. Does this sponsor know you IRL or in-game? IRL, Cousins.

13. Do you own a Dartol's Rod of Transformation? If you do not, please explain why. If you don't know what it is or how to get it, click the link: I didn't know what it was, then I searched it up on wowhead. I noticed that it was in Ashenvale and I suspect that's the reason. I never liked that part of the WoW world for whatever reason.

14. Anything else you would like to say about yourself: (this is your chance to show us your personality, fill it in)

I would like to think that I had a good knowledge of my characters when I played, I probably forget most of it now and my information is probably outdated as well. I know it's probably unusual but I posted my three level 70 characters on this application because I'm honestly not sure which one I want to have as a main when I come back. I take criticism well, in fact, I enjoy it. I have somewhat of a competitive nature and try to be the best at whatever I do, especially when it comes to computer games. I won World Cyber Games Canadian Eastern regionals two years in a row with an invite to Nationals. When I left StarCraft the other year I started playing CoD4. I competed in CAL and TWL, our team (Binary) is now ranked among the top 10 CoD4 teams out there. To sum it up, I like competition, I like having a goal and working for it. Sometimes I work too hard or spend too much time on it.

As far as my offline self goes, I'm 23 and from Saint John, New Brunswick (Canada). I'm engaged with plans to get married next year. I completed a 4 year BA degree with a major in Political Science. I am now working towards a career in law enforcement. I like to go to the gym regularly and stay healthy. My current employment is as a youth worker with kids who have been taken from their families and placed in our care. We observe and assess their needs and then make recommendations from there. I hope this application was satisfactory, let me know if I missed anything or if you need any more information.