
Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash: Pick Two

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StarCraft 2

pyr8queen and I were very lucky to have gotten beta invites to StarCraft2 (Thanks Jen and Max!) and we've both been playing since I got it downloaded and working Thursday night.

I played a lot of StarCraft back in the day, but I was never any good at online games at all. I just didn't understand..I'd finally have my first marine reporting for duty, and suddenly I'd get rushed by every Zerg in the Beta Quadrant. How the hell did they do it?

Well, turns out a lot of folks either never stopped playing SC1, or remained incredibly sharp despite the interregnum, because much the same has happened. The beta is online play only, and even though it's allegedly matching me with users at a similar skill level, I've yet to win a match. I just don't know how to produce so much, so fast! I wish there were a "No really, I suck" league - though even if there were, all the griefers would play in it just for easy wins.

As it is, the learning curve is so high, I don't know how practical it is for me to play this game! I mean, when time after time I am producing 1/3 to 1/2 the units the other guys are producing - despite trawling forums and youtube for hints and how-to's... I just don't know how to play in even close to the same league as any other player. The game itself is beautiful, and apparently excruciatingly carefully balanced, too. Reading people's strategies, it really matters if you turn your third SCV into the mineral fields or to making a supply depot, and may give as much as a 2 or 3 second edge against the zerg who mutates his larvae into a Queen instead of a spawning pool. Or something. The look and feel of the game is like what you're used to, only faster, shinier, prettier and with cooler sound effects.

But at the level I'm playing? It would be like if you took a grade-school kid and put him in the NFL, and told him "Don't worry, they're not allowed to rough the passer, it's balanced."

How can someone who literally grew up playing video games be so deucedly bad at them?

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