Ephemeralness

You've heard Riptide's thoughts on the matter. I suppose it's my turn.

Starcraft is a game many have you have played, but few have taken as seriously as I have. As a student of the game for almost as solid two years now, I've put hours upon hours into this game. This places me at the very bottom of the totem pole in the Starcraft community, one of the many D-level players who have all done the same.

Because Starcraft is not so much a game as it is a way to live. When I first started playing, it was all I could think about. I literally dreamed of strategies. Maybe I could proxy a pylon ... and then take another base in the meantime while he prepared for a proxy rush ... There was no end to thoughts like these. In a game I understood nothing about, the possibilities were endless.

Slowly but surely, I moved up the ladder among my friends. Started beating people who had played for far longer than I had, people with far superior mechanics. Not because I had some amazing natural abilities. Simply because I breathed Starcraft. I probably read every strategy forum post on TL for about a three month period. My understanding of how the game worked increased. My skills likewise increased.

Winning was a nice change. You can love a game, but seeing the fruits of your labor, at least at some point, is somewhat necessary. For a while, it was immensely satisfying. To beat people I previously had no shot against. To walk into someone's base with an insurmountable number of units. It was the result of careful expansion timing, safe tech choices, and constant defensive vigilance. And when my opponent typed "gg," as is the traditional way to resign a game of Starcraft, I would breathe a sigh of relief. And then start the next game.

Perhaps even more rewarding was to see how people responded to my drastic rise in skill level. They didn't give up. They tried to top me. And together, we improved by leaps and bounds. Matchups that used to feature completely incorrect openings and horrendous macro now utilized the most recent of Korean Professional build orders, coupled with constant worker production and macro to the very best of our abilities. I've watched replays of us from the beginning. Not only was I terrible, but so were my opponents. We came such a long way in such a short period of time.

My improvement also spelled the end of my Starcraft dreams. I now had enough sense to know that proxying a pylon would cause a cheese defense, and therefore taking a hidden base was highly impractical since I would be overrun by their defense-turned offense. It was painfully apparent that any good player would notice that I had no SCVs on gas, and therefore my hidden-quadruple-rax would be defended with ease. Yes, this hurt. But my innovations were not finished - they simply became more refined, more subtle. Trying to find timings where I could sneak hidden expansions, ling bust, and pull off a biomech push TvP became the norm. And although I never became good at any of these, it was always tremendous fun.

Recently they announced the release of the Starcraft 2 Beta. The graphics are mind-blowing. The unit-pathing is brilliant by comparison. Unreasonable inefficiencies such as the inability to select more than twelve units are no more. Units have newer, more impressive abilities, and they have been designed in strange but beautiful ways.

Looking at that game, I can't help but think one thing. This isn't Starcraft. They might call it Starcraft 2. That's just a name. It's another RTS. I don't understand why it has to replace the best computer game I've ever played. Why everyone else is so eager to move on to what's new and shiny and modern, when what's right in front of us is a far more beautiful game?

The obvious comparison that comes to mind is the release of Super Smash Brothers Brawl, for the Nintendo Wii. It was the sequel to Super Smash Brothers Melee. The game looks amazing. But the game play is slower. There are fewer advanced techniques that can be used to gain an edge. There are fewer playable characters, and even those playable characters are separated by huge gaps.

What gives me hope? The fact that Melee's professional scene is still very much alive. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say it's bigger than the professional scene of Brawl. Tournament gatherings are increasing in frequency, and the number of entrants in these tournaments has reached new heights.

Is it possible for Starcraft: Broodwar to do the same? I don't know. By all accounts, the professional scene in Korea is ready to move on. So are the top foreigners, who, given the advent of a completely new game, finally have a chance to catch up to the Koreans. And the rest of the Broodwar community seems ready to follow.

I am not. They might shut down ICCup. Battlenet might have next to no one online. But I'm ready to keep playing this game until I truly no longer want to.

Won't you join me?