Starcraft: the Micromanager's RTS

As most RTS fans know by now, Starcraft II is expected in the not too distant future (though I suspect a bit more distant than most fans are hoping for). In anticipation of the new release, forum wars are breaking-out over proposed interface updates, particularly over a feature Blizzard is calling MBS (for Multiple Building Selection).  The question is whether players should be able to issue build orders to a group of production buildings at once, or be forced to continue playing the poorly designed click-fest that SC was well known for. SC fanbois and “pro-gamers” find themselves in the difficult position of demanding a weaker UI to make the game harder. While to any strategy gamer (or system designer) this may seem like an absurd position to take, there really are two sides to this story.

 

First, let me clarify that SC’s style is not for me, but SC is still not a bad game. I’ve always loved RTSs, and I thought the original StarCraft had one of the best single player campaigns ever (as well as an AI that was underappreciated for its time), but I never liked SC for multiplayer. After my first and only foray into online play I realized this game was different from other RTSs – somehow other players were far out-pacing my production – to a degree that should have been impossible. After doing a little research my suspicions were confirmed; there were known micro-management techniques that could push production well beyond the base economic model. Each of these techniques seemed like developer oversights if not outright bugs, but then there was a huge community of fans that absolutely loved the fact that these exploits were available. 

 

While Starcraft contained most of the elements and themes of a typical RTS, the game’s lack of polish and sophistication opened the door to a lot of micro-management, which wound up making the game twitchier than other popular RTSs (even other Blizzard titles.)  Despite the protests of fans and Blizzard designers, there is no real question of balance of play styles in SC; to be competitive you must first be top-notch in the speed category, and only then does strategy come into play. To put it in table-top terms, the game plays like a combination of ping-pong and chess. Carrying that bad analogy further, competitive players are probably not world-class ping-pong players, nor are they likely world-class chess players, but they’re in the unusual position of being good enough at both strategy and twitch gaming to have found their niche in Starcraft. It would seem then that Blizzard haphazardly invented a new sub-genre with the release of Starcraft, and as a game developer, they’re wise not to dismiss the concerns of these loyal fans. 

 

SC may not represent what I consider a strategy game or even a “proper” RTS, but it has a fan base none-the-less. SCII could turn out the same, and I may only play SCII for the single player campaign (as I wrote in another blog long, long ago, “infested Kerrigan is way hot in a grossly-disfigured-murderous-bitch sort-of-way.”) Best case scenario, they’ll hit the strategy/twitch sweet spot close enough that I might even bother to learn the speed techniques just so I can try to school some of those arrogant SC twitch freaks on what strategy really means. I’m looking forward to the game either way. My only fear is that if the game is successful, it will set off another Blizzard-following industry trend, and all RTSs will start moving in the same direction (and each will likely meet with approximately the same success as the wave of WoW-wannabe’s.) That would mean dark times for strategy gamers.