Wednesday, March 30, 2011

What the future could hold for gaming


This was an Article written in Games for Windows several years ago. The question was as follows.

"Dear Developer,
If you could, at the wave of a magic wand, overcome some technological hurdle in game development, what would it be? And, more importantly, what would it allow you to do that you can’t do today? Ultimately, this is about you making the games you want to make."

This response was perfect by Blair and Craig Fraser, the directors for the hit RTS(Real Time Strategy) game, "Sins of a Solar Empire" for Ironclad Studios. Heres thier response.

"The most fascinating thing for us about making video games is the magic of bringing a universe to life. This virtual world has its agents and rules, and the simulation jsut executes step-by-step, evolving over time jsut like ours. It’s as if each game is some alternate universe where its Big Bang shifted the symmetry, breaking just a bit more to the left than the right than the one we are familiar with. In some strange way, it’s like games are really an expression of our intrest in humankind, the universe, life, God, and the deepest philisophical questions. It isn’t a new idea, but it’s the one that we love very much. Ideally we dream of a game where we could implement the Theory of Everything and have it run at full speed- obviously a contradiction, be we are dreaming here-simulating our reality, and then tweak all sorts of parameters to see what other kinds of universes can come out. We’d then love to immerse ourselves into one of these environments witha  device that overides our normal sensory input and feeds the virtual input directly into the brain- perhaps even providin g us with completely new  senses. Sucha  system may provide us with a realistic sensation of flight, superhuman strength and agility, to interact with intelligent beings in these environments so we could ask them what they thought about these questions and the answers we’re seeking. With the right technology, will games become both a source of entertainment and enlightenment? In some ways, we feel they already are."

Awsome article.


You can find out what other developers like Will Wright(Simcity, The Sims, etc) or Todd Howard(Elder Scrolls: Oblivion) said at 1up.com







Tuesday, March 29, 2011

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Nuke Fish!!!

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Nuke Fish!!!

I made a little graphic in honor of Day(9)'s latest Funday Monday, perhaps one of the funniest ones I have ever seen!

Friday, March 25, 2011

MiniGun



I encourage anyone to keep an eye out on TeamLiquid.net for a livestream by the user Minigun. He occasionally Streams ladder matches and also streams his coaching sessions so a great way to get some tips without paying for it. By the way, he is primarily a Protoss player :)

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Top 10 of Forge Romeo!



Finally I did it! I made it to the top echelons of Forge Romeo! It took some work, but the biggest thing I noticed was that my macro began to slip after several games. I would get too excited, attack early, or screw up my build order in my over confidence. Indeed, what I have heard about concentrating on Macro in the lower leagues and less on the game itself has really paid off. Macro really is the most important thing to concentrate on. When we learn to macro fluidly and effectively, then we find the power to get our Micro and Macro in a balance. Sorta like this:

You can find more of these great designs at
http://thehandsomenerd.com/

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Team Diamond Slayers Tournament

Tonight at 9pm EST, Team Diamond Slayers will be hosting a lower level tournament, and I am in it! Yesterday they hosted the Bronze and Silver level Tournament and declared a winner, Moach. The prize pool was small, but they are hoping to get more people involved! So check out the stream tonight for the Platinum/Gold level Tournament!

You can check out the stream and the rest of the site at: Team Diamond Slayers.

To find out about other Tournaments, head on over to Team Liquid and check out their Tournaments forum for all the latest info on currently running tournaments!

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

We have all been there...

Click the image to find out what I mean...

We have all been there, its important to never give up and don't let yourself get discouraged when your mineral split fails....

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Warp Prisms and you. A guide to having safe Warping with your partner.

Did you know a transformed
Warp Prism can still
carry units?
A docile Warp Prism




OK boys and girl(lets be honest, theres not many of you out there in SC2), Its time to tell you about the Warp Gates and the Prisms...


When two opponents want to kill each other really passionately, they will sometimes resort to very invasive measures. The key is to test the waters and to make sure your opponent can handle that type of pressure, er wait I mean not handle it...oh boy....this isn't going well...


I used Warp Prisms back in the Silver league of the Beta. It seemed to be the only way I could in against a turtling Terran going mass Vikings. Recently I began using them again. A Zerg match I had earlier today inspired me to begin using them again. The same match I used for my Phoenix build in my post about New Protoss Builds for PvZ.


This match was an epic one. Ever since going 4 gate against Protoss I have begun having more success in this matchup, I know it's sad, but I don't have much choice at this level of play. My opponent snuck a Probe behind my line and near the not so natural expansion on Delta Quadrant. Then the war for the non natural expansion began. If he had done this at the front, I wouldn't have had such an easy time expanding, teching up, and feel safe in general.  Check the replay out, it was quite a good match.


Both Offensive and Defensive Forcefields at work here.
As soon as I fended off the Proxy push, I had an already setup Expo, and was building a Warp Prism with Blink to abuse his obvious high unit count. Protoss units are best stuck together. We don't have the numbers of units that Terran and Zerg often have at later stages in the game. A Protoss army consists of Quality over Quantity(when you think about it like this, those Forge upgrades suddenly seem a lot better huh?). So I loaded up a few zealots and flew to his not so natural expansion, and warped in 7 Blink Stalkers on the cliff over looking it.


Blink Stalkers in combination with Warp Prisms are a very useful.
I waited till a 2nd round of warp ins were ready and brought those in as well. I blinked 14 stalkers into his mineral line and cleaned it up, when his units came over to defend, I blinked back up, waited for them to move and blinked them back in. I then sent my main army to his front and it became a two pronged attack. Shortly after he GG'd.


This next one was on Metalopolis. We spawned in close positions by air. However it was another PvP so using Phoenix's were not an option. When you are close positions by air, utilizing Warp Prisms should be a must, like using Phoenix's or Void Rays against Zerg in the same spawn points.


Did you know you can cut off an army using this choke point? 
The Warp Prism came in handy, and I only used it when I knew my opponent had a Sentry at the ramp waiting to FF me the moment my Army was halfway up. I quickly macro'd up and got a Prism with about 7 Gateways to support it. I knew he had an expansion so I Warped in 2 rounds of units. Notice a pattern? when you warp in units, you want to make sure they are going to do damage and be big enough to warrant bringing the entirety of his force to hold it off, so waiting 20 seconds to warp in another round is worth it.

What warping in behind a shrouded area of the map looks like.
Once he moved back I moved in and took out his expansion, while at the same time, I took my third. My force in the back didn't do much damage, in fact we were on more even terms after that exchange, however I was going on 3 bases while he was now back on one. So in the grand scheme of things, it was a great exchange for me.


Summary
So to sum up, Warp Prisms are best used when your opponent does not know about them, and unlike drops they can transport more units into the base. This is why it is so important to wait for another round of warp ins, or to wait until you have more than 4 gateways. If the main has cliffs you can abuse, use them in combination with Blink Stalkers. Delta Quadrant is a great example of this.

Saturday, March 19, 2011

GSL oGsMC(P) vs July(Z)

The Grand Finals of the March GSL was last night and the winner is....

oGsMC!




























You can check out the first match at Gom.tv. To watch the rest of the matches, you must purchase a season ticket. :) oGsMC is now the first player to have won a GSL as Protoss, not once, but twice.






MLG Dallas Lineup Update



Huk will not be at MLG Dallas this year, however, Idra, InControl, TheLittleOne, Ret, Tyler(nony) are confirmed to be there. Out of all of them, I hope Tyler(Nony) does well.

If anyone has plans on going or about the area let me know. I am from the Dallas area and will be attending most likely all weekend.

My email is starcraftnoob@live.com

Thursday, March 17, 2011

New Builds for Protoss Part 2 (PvZ)

PvZ

This matchup I enjoy the most. I have been using Phoenix play early on too great success. Zerg have no effective Anti air early on, and they must sacrifice their queens(150 minerals Yikes!) or get a Evo Chamber up with some spore crawlers in there Mineral line to effectively Defend against it. I usually go with 4 Phoenix's and begin searching for Overlords. I need to take down at least 6 to make it worth my while. However I am still working out the kinks and I tend to let my Macro slip because I get so excited shooting the big fat floaty things in the sky :)

Queens make prime targets for the Phoenix

They also work well in other situations like when your opponent is going Muta/Roach/Ling. Phoenix's can handle a group of Mutas larger than them. They do extra damage to light and thats just what Muta's are. However Mutas do no extra damage to any unit. They are just very fast and are great at harassing the mineral lines. There is one more thing Phoenix's are good at, defense.

Phoenix's are great removing units from play without killing them.


When being attacked. the Phoenix can lift up some units from the battle to prevent them from participating. Later on in this match, the opponent sent Roaches at me. I let my macro slip and was about 1100 minerals up. So brought my Phoenix's back and had them lift some roaches so as to try and even the playing field. It worked and I repelled the Roaches back. Phoenix's, however, don't do so well in the other Matchups.

The Build
But this is how the build works. You grab your gateway and Core down ASAP. And then grab your 2nd gas while placing your 2nd gaeway and Stargate down. When you have enough minerals, place another Gateway down. Phoenix's only cost 50 more gas and 25 more minerals than a stalker. So you should be able to still utilize 3 gateways, which was the mistake I kept making, I was under the impression that you could only have 2 Gateways and a Stargate.

Also, 4 gating also works very well in this Matchup, but I am looking to break away from the monotony that is 4gating. Sometimes grabbing a Robotics Facility will help fend off the Roaches as well as provide you with access to an Observer and only 1 building away from a Colossus. If Zerg are going only Roaches and Lings, your best bet is to attempt to grab a Colossus, but the only way to know if he is doing this is by applying pressure. Constantly build Stalkers, and if hes still building Roaches to defend, he wont be getting alot of lings, however if he builds more lings and more Roaches, get ready for some tricky play. Either way, a Robotics Facility will be your friend. When you push out, place one down so you can be ready for whatever he decides to throw at you. Staying in a 4 gate build or even into 6-8 gates, will only hinder the effectiveness of the Protoss. Lings are just the bane of a Protoss army early game.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

New Protoss Builds Part 1 of 3 (PvP)

I have found a few new builds I have been utilizing since I have started laddering again (27 Wins, 32 Losses so far). This is what I have discovered in the Matchups. The one thing I have learned this past week, and after all my thinking of Protoss tactics without actually playing, is that Protoss are best when they have 2 bases supporting them. Our units take very long to build and are very expensive but very fast and powerful when we finally get them out. So it only makes sense that we need a very good economy to help run it all.

PvP
This matchup is so weird to me. It always throws me for a loop. Here are a few examples of the games I played. At first, I tried going something other than 4 gate against Toss, trying to find out what they were doing then do the appropriate build, however I soon found out that most other Toss as this level of play was doing the same thing in most cases. In fact, I was always beat when the opponent did a build without reacting to mine, thus my build was slightly behind and I ultimately lost. The PvP matchup seems more and more like a staring contest, seeing who will "Blink" first so someone has an advantage.


This match I saw him have 2 gates really early. My build always gets a Core first. If I see those 2 gate ways early enough, I have enough time to grab a Forge and place a few Cannons down while also grabbing a Sentry to FF the ramp to trap some of his Zealots as I pick them off. I quickly transitioned into a 4 gate and apply the pressure on him until I finally push into his base and win.


This game was odd. I held my own against constant pressure only using Cannons and enough units from 3 gates. I was very surprised it worked and the only reason I won was because my opponent didn't expand, which is a common epidemic for lower league Toss. They have this mindset that the 4 gate is a Win all Build, and its not. Its fundamental weakness is your constantly building units and not generating enough to expand.


Colossus will rip through any army of equal size.

This guy was very smart. I scouted a Council and a Robotics Facility and immediately thought he was going Immortal/Zealot with Charge as I saw many Zealots already. I began to get an expansion while also going for some Immortals as well with Stalkers to kite the Zealots. Yes You can still effectively kite Zealots even with Charge. However, when he pushed he had 3 Colossus and I had just expanded. It was gg shortly thereafter.


So this is what I have taken out of all this. 4 Gate is still the best way to go in this matchup. The fast 3 Colossus could have been easily taken down if I had gone 4 gate and applied some early pressure. However it is still important to grab a Robotics Facility at some point to grab an Observer in case there are Dark Templars coming out, which happened at some point in another game where it was 4 gate vs 4 gate. Most PvP matches don't last very long as one of the players will quickly gain a disadvantage and the other will take that advantage.

Next will be PvZ. Probably my favorite matchup.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Probes and Chronoboost



Probes are the unit that always gets the first Chronoboost of the game and recently I heard of a post on Team Liquid about the efficiency of workers and minerals. However I could not find this post by searching the usual avenues. So I decided to do a few quick tests of my own..

Blizzard tells us three per patch, and after doing some research, this isn't the case. In fact, the number is lower. So Chronoboosting probes is beneficial early on, or during Maynarding(the process of taking half your probes and transferring them to your expansion). But there comes a point where Chronoboosting your probes helps you in no way relating to mineral collection. Here are the numbers:

The Test
My tests consisted of 1 minute intervals with 5 probes at a time.
Beep beep

5   Probes can collect 280 give or take 5.
10 Probes can collect 560 give or take 5.
15 Probes can collect 825 give or take 10.
20 Probes can collect 1040 give or take 20.
25 Probes can collect 1100 give or take 40.

So we can see, the most beneficial number of Probes to have mining is about 20. Any more and the number becomes erratic sometimes going up 100 a minute, sometimes only increasing by about 20-40 a minute. This is because all the Probes are trying to find empty mineral patches. I have even read that some Probes at this amount will bounce from patch to patch for up to 30 seconds without ever working. Therefore, Chronoboost no longer becomes useful on Probes after 20 Probes have been assigned to minerals. However this would change if you were doing a Fast Expand build.

Summary
20 Probes per expansion on the mineral line. Do not Chronoboost Probes after 20, which I believe is around the time the Core is going up if you had been constantly building Probes.An easy way to find out how many you have is to box your Probes and if there are two and a half lines of Probes exactly in the unit bar, thats exactly how many is most efficient.

This is what 20 Probes look like.

This also helps later on so when you see you have 60 Probes and only two expansions, you need to expand simply to be making more money.

I have heard several people say that you need to be constantly building Probes and never stop. But one Probe costs not only 50 minerals, but also 1 food. I have seen some pro games were the Probes made was around 90, thats half of your supply and at least 12 Stalkers worth of units. Meaning your army size will not be as strong compared to someone who only made 60 workers. Yes having extra can help you later on if you decide to go for 4 bases, or they do a drop in your mineral line, but thats what Cannons and keeping a good eye out for enemy movement is for. Chronoboost usually lasts for 2 rounds of Probe production on a single building So you may only need to use Chronoboost 7-10 times on your Nexus before needing to switch Chronoboost targets.

I hope this was helpful. For Terrans and Zerg, the Same rule applies to efficiency, however for Terrans, Mules take priority on mineral Patches over an SCV, meaning they will always work the same patch so make sure to assign them one of the patches that are closer to your Command Center.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

North American Star League



The North American Star League is being formed! It is the USA's attempt at the GSL. Show your support for it by heading over to nasl.tv and signing up for their emails and casting a few votes for the players!

Here is an interview with EGIncontrol about the league and his part in it.