The recent battle report by blizzard (that can be found on www.starcraft2.com) has rekindled my excited child-like anticipation of Starcraft 2. But as I cast my eye over the forums and websites devoted to those with a similar feeling of hope towards the second coming, I noticed a familiar argument reappearing time and again. Perhaps many of you are unfamiliar with this disagreement, but if you ever played the original Starcraft or any RTS after 1999 (or ideally, both) this should be a concept you are familiar with.

The argument in its most direct form goes something like this:
“This individual believes that the simplification and intuitive design of user interface and basic game mechanics that have developed in real time strategy games since 1998 due to technological and innovative game design have had a negative effect on the production of a game that can be considered ideal for esports”

Simply (if very crudely) put: Many fans of the RTS genre are worried that Starcraft 2 will be ‘too easy’ to play. Part of the skill of playing Starcraft at a professional level comes with how you manage the somewhat awkward interface. There are of course those that disagree, who say that the advances in game mechanics have been a blessing that makes the entire genre a lot more fun to play.

4 main points come up time and again, all of which can usually be taken for granted as included in a modern RTS title:

MBS (Multiple Building Selection): This may seem obvious now, but Starcraft doesn’t allow more than one building to be selected, this means every time you want to create a large number of units, you must select each building individually and click or press the hotkey to create a unit. MBS significantly cuts down the number of actions to achieve the same goal.

Smartcasting: Not entirely relevant to every RTS, but definitely Blizzard ones. Warcraft 3 has a system whereby if you select a group of casters and tell them to cast a spell, one of the casters will cast the spell based on range, mana, cool down and other variables. In Starcraft all the casters will cast the spell. This is usually a bad thing, 5 psi storms in the same place is generally not useful for your casters energy.

Auto-mining: This is usually the most controversial point since manual mining is such a large part of Starcraft, you cannot simply rally a worker unit onto a resource. They will not mine it. Having to manually click and assign every workers task individually creates more work for the player, since Starcraft is such a macro and economy intensive game, streamlining this process is considered making the game less macro based.

Large group selection: In Starcraft the maximum group size is considerably smaller than most RTS games. Expanding the group size allows armies to be controlled with greater ease and efficiency. The argument goes: ‘making armies easier to control means the entire outcome of the battle is determined by positioning and unit choice, omitting a certain level of player skill’ Especially concerning the Zerg, with which part of the skill relies on how the player can handle very large numbers of units.
Starcraft is an OLD game. It’s a universal truth that old should not necessarily have negative connotations, though one side of ‘the debate’ seems unfortunately keen to make this connection. I wouldn’t like to take a side on this debate as honestly, I don’t know which side to agree with.

However, I should make it clear that while I like the micro orientated style of Warcraft 3, I am expecting and looking forward to the stark contrast of macro and heavily tactical based gaming that Starcraft 2 is promising.

So, now that I’ve set my intentions on the table, let’s take an objective look at the possibly connotations of Blizzard including or removing these features from Starcraft 2.

A lot could be said here, but a good writer will always be able to compromise between eloquence and efficiency:

“If you throw enough soufflé at a wall, some of it will stick”

In order to have a thriving esports aspect to any game, you need a solid foundation of plebs. What would Football be (the one where you kick a ball with your foot i.e. not Handegg) without millions of fans cramming into stadiums every weekend, subscribing to expensive TV packages so they can watch their favourite sport and buying lots of merchandise. Sports are held up by what the average fan thinks of the sport.

So this entire issue is supremely relevant. It’s very easy for the average person to play a game in the exact manner in which their heroes do. The same maps, rules, tactics and play styles apply. The ones holding up the professional scene are those that actually want it to exist, and who would want to be part of a gaming community where they didn’t like the game in question?
So... in order for a game to make it to esports level, it needs a considerable number of fans of the actual game. In order to reach this balance the game needs to be set somewhere between crowd pleasing and challenging. It needs to be fun, accessible and intuitive but also intricate, varied and allow for an individual’s style of play.

That last one maybe threw you a bit. That is... unless you are familiar with top level Starcraft. There is one aspect that may very well disappear with the sequel: Style.

Counter strike, Warcraft 3 and Quake 4, to take some examples, contain very little within them to differentiate between the very top players. All 3 of these games have generally accepted ‘rules’ (admittedly these ‘rules’ may change as the metagames develop) whereby the community of professional players collectively and often unconsciously decide what is worthy of their focus and attention, basically what is the ‘right’ thing to do when presented with a situation.

Starcraft is different, because the game is literally so difficult to play, and has so many different aspects to it: macro, micro, positioning, unit choices, building placement, and timing. Sure there are accepted strategies and timings, but no single player can ever perfect their game in all these, and more, categories. So what do they do? Specialize.

There are those that may argue a certain Counter Strike player’s grenades are always perfect, a Warcraft player knows the limit of the blademaster better than any other or a Quake player never misses an armour spawn. This to an extent can be true but is more evident in Starcraft than any other game. The metagame of Starcraft has developed ridiculously over its lifetime. Certain players have become feared for their micro, others become predictable by relying on ‘perfect’ timings, while another you would be afraid to let expand because of their macro efficiency.

All these aspects have developed because of the aged interface and mechanics. They have given the game soul and allowed countless players to play the game in a variety of ways and challenge themselves to change their play style in a significant way. Many fans are praying Starcraft 2 won’t mark the end of a golden age of competitive real time strategy. While others think the entire industry is about to be reshaped into something too exciting to imagine.