I hate starcraft players!

Argh!!! I just installed starcraft on my home PC and decided to play a few games on battlenet so I could maybe stand a chance against my sister's husband who wipes the floor with me every time I play, but it's been nothing but frustration playing games there!

First of all, almost everyone sets up 3 vs 3 games.

About 5% of the time, one player is on a modem or something, and this causes the game to lag so much that everyone quits immediately.

33% of the time, one player quits immediately when the game starts, and rather than continue to play with unbalanced teams or turn the game into a free for all, everyone quits.

Another 33% of the time, someone rushes one of the bases, sometimes with a partner within the first five minutes. If that player dies, then 50% of the time the other players on his team will once again, quit immediately.

About half the time, the person that gets rushed is me. I always play terran.

Half the time, I try to build bunkers to block the entrance to my base. If I just do this, and then build tanks to fortify it, I can hold off a rush.

But inevitably when I build up in this way, the rush never comes. They only rush when I don't build these defenses.

Building the defenses though takes 100% of my attention to get it to the point where it can withstand a rush of zergs or zealots. I have to spend all my money on building SCV's, marines, and tanks just to barely be able to survive if a rush does come.

But if I am successful at building these defenses, then I have no air defense. And what inevitably occurs then is ten minutes later a huge airforce flys across my base and wipes it out. To defend against this, I'd have needed to have been building missile turrets from the moment I was able to, and have already started building starports and producing air vehicles.

I could alternatively get goliaths online to defend agaisnt an air attack, but they're practically ineffectual against ground units. So if the rush comes, and it will, they'll just get slaughtered. And they take a long time to get up and going, and and early rush with five guys or something always ends up coming if I'm trying to do that.

So between players constantly quitting the game just after it's started, and the inability for almost any game to last beyond a rush or air or ground in the first ten minutes, why does anyone even play this game?!

The only time I had any fun was in a gam that lasted 30 minutes. We had one expert player whose teammates quit on him, and I was on a team with two other players about twice as good as me. All three of us kept throwing everything we had against the guy, who was playing protoss, and we kepst destroying his attakc waves and blowing up a building here and there but it was a stalemate for a long time. But then just when I was building up a massive airforce for one huge strike... surprise! He quits!

I think I'll go back to playing counterstrike. In counterstrike, people don't just type kill in their console after half their team is dead, or even all of their team is dead.

That's 171% of the time!

People who whine about unbalanced teams are fools.
It's fun kicking ass when you are at a disadvantage! (And it can be easier, since your team becomes more manageable).

Although, drop-in multiplayer games should at this point be built to balance out uneven player counts via some means, but for some reason this is rare...

The only RTS games I have been able to stand playing online have been Homeworld and Company of Heroes.
CoH because it is focused on tactics instead of uninspiring build guys really fast "gameplay".
Homeworld because it also has some kind of tactics thing, the bases are far apart so you can see enemies coming and actually act on it, and there is no bothersome air vs. ground thing. There are still strengths and weaknesses for all the units, but it is not a half-assed "rock paper scissors" design.

You've put me in the mood to dig out starcraft again...

I use to play Starcraft all the time, although I never really played normal games. Rather, I played Use Map Settings games, which were a lot more fun.

If you ever play against a 'Dutch Clown', then brace yourself.. I know 'em, they're hell on earth.. :P

Additionally, there are some freaky vids on youtube about some freaky Koreans playing SC.

..same here..I got badly pissed of that I uninstall game...

Buy C&C 3, play, be happier.

SC has been dead for a long time except for Korea where it is a national pastime.

There are only really 2 kinds of SC players now, casual (who play silly 3v3 random games, where anyone could win by pure luck), and hardcore players who have been playing for ages and who have all their tactics down pat and you will lose to.

Darkheart

"That's 171% of the time!"

Yes! And that's why it's so frustrating! :-)

Tho I have War3, I haven't really played it a lot (I was an avid War2 player however!). Is there a fanatic war3 scene around? There's more tactics around with 5 races..

Another reasonably decent multiplayer strategy game is FreeCiv with "longturn" matches.
Each turn takes a day, so the game lasts a long time. This means that it is easier to wrap into your schedule. Since you have a day to arrange your turn / communicate with other players, everything becomes a lot more detailed and interesting, with some actual proper politics popping up.
I still fail miserably, but it is much less annoying since it gets drawn out over a few days.

How about a BlitzCraft tourney, least that way we're playing with others we know via text, and hopefully on speeds faster than dial-up.....

Anyhow, I myself couldn't get into Battle.Net unless it involved one of those creative scripted custom maps, as for either what you suggested, or the fact the people I'd be playing against are hardcore and know the game inside-out......was just more fun to play with my bro over the LAN against some AI, as it's always been for me with RTS games.
(had some good times with Age of Empires2)

Starcraft is a terrible game, I don't see why you're playing it.

:P

I almost feel embarassed to admit this but, I've never played Starcraft.

I agree with starcraft being horrible. I LOVE rts games but that one I never could see the appeal.

But somethimes they have started their build for the rush, all they have then done is looked to see if you could survive it.
Build a comsat, have a looksee at their base, and if they have wasted effort on a rush build, go and siege tank block them.

TBH Freeciv is much more fun, I played starcraft to death in the old days but not much on battlenet as most of em were Zergling rushers

If you can even get online with it.

If you like trite gameplay.

If you like a stroyline that has no connection to the previous lore.

My friend - several years ago - was so into StarCraft that he wanted the expansion. With the expansion, however, he needed the code from the first StarCraft's installation, which of course he didn't have, so here was his solution:

-Buy another StarCraft, and use that one's code (on the box).
-Give the old StarCraft to me. Through the years, I kept installing/uninstalling StarCraft on my computer, depending on my mood. During installation, it asks you for the code on the box that I didn't have. Surprisingly, every time it asked for the code, I would type in random numbers... and it worked nearly every time! One time I was surprised to find that it took 123-456-7890 or something like that.

The point of this story is that - although the installation code seemed to work - it never let me play on Battle.net. It seems that was no great loss.

P.S. I have since sold the game at a yard sale. If you bought it from me and have been swearing the past couple of years because you don't have the installation code, do what I did. It should work.

I haven't played starcraft in years (gave my copy away a few years ago) and was never able to play on battle net although played a few lan games. I did enjoy making scripted cooperative multiplayer missions against a scripted AI. These could be quite fun - I prefer to play pc games co-op (exceptions being street fighter and its ilk)

Obvious really... for the rush*!

Dabz

*Sorry, I couldnt resist it! :)

C&C 3 is great - even in multiplayer mode. Plus its coming to the Mac very soon.

What I dont like is people, in Halo, who after being re-soundly defeated, which the game...

Starcraft rocks! You haven't lived until you've played it with several friends on a LAN from dusk to dawn on a Saturday night! A case or two of soda, tons of munchies and the satisfaction that you're best friend (whose playing Zerg) just got his butt whipped by your Terran forces is priceless! :)

I've just read news about the South-Korean Army actually training using StarCraft!
'ere!

Sswift! We hate you too!

XD

But seriously, RTSs aren't for everyone.

And it totally depends on what battlenet server you're on.

Don't play the Asian one if you're new. They'll wipe the floor with you. Pick one of the US ones.

Also, most of the people who still play starcraft have been playing it for freaking years! They'll have way more experience than you. They'll have mapped out the first five minutes of play without even thinking about it.

Secondly, if you're online, it's quite likely that you're playing on a map with practically infinite resources.
That requires a different type of play than you'll usually find.

Thirdly, on a Terran note. Seige tanks only work on noobs. Don't both with nukes. Yamato cannons can fire absurd distances, so they're actually not that bad for seiging with. Ghosts will only fire if you point and click each target individually UNLESS they're in a bunker. So ghost rushes don't work so well. The science vessels irradiate ability is useless but if you're against protoss, it's EMP thingee is pretty darn awesome.

Instead of blocking your base with bunkers, what about
supply depots? You've got to build them anyway.

Vultures aren't actually that great but their spider mines are. Build a small collection of them and zoom them around the map, dropping spider mines in choke points.
The spider mines will even act as scouts in a way, letting you see anything flying above them. Leave some spider mines in a possible base site to deter enemies against populating it.

fourthly, intelligence is key in any RTS. Spider mines, that satilite add-on to the command centre, flying units, etc, can all be used to figure out what your enemy is doing. The thing is, if they're going heavily into air units,
you'll need to counter that. If they're going to rush, you
need to counter that. If they're solidifying their position, you need to counter that.

The only way to truly counter properly is to know what your enemy is doing. Thus, intelligence is key.

Alternatively, just build a bunch of battlecruisers and yamato gun them. :P

I've tried laying spider mines outside my base but nobody ever runs over them. They just shoot them.

Putting them in altenative bases though sounds like a good idea. I could get a bunch of those guys going pretty quick.

But how do those mines work? I place them down and then I stop being able to place them. Do they have to recharge or do you have a limited number per vehicle?

I tried firing a yamaoto gun once on a protoss structure and it didn't seem to do diddly squat. Maybe it damaged it, but I don't know how you're supposed to detect damage on protoss strucutres. At least terran ones catch fire. I was expecting the gun to blow the building up in one shot and take a long time to recharge.

Figuring out what my enemy is doing right now is the least of my worries since I can't even build an airforce fast enough to counter their zerg airstrike. I just found out while playing a freind that some of the flying zerg have a range which is longer than my missile turrets so they won't get hurt at all by them as they blow them up. I forget what he told me to do to defend against that. I think he said I needed to build wraiths.

As for building battlecruisers, my battlecruisers always get their asses kicked by whatever forces come at them and they take so long to build and so much money... I seem to do much better with goliaths and wraiths and things.

Basically I just want to get to the point where I can hold off attacks for a while. Then I can start worrying about being able to go on the offensive. If I can't even hold off attacks, then trying to both hold off attacks and go on the offensive at once isn't going to end well.

If you are getting to the point were you have built Battlecruisers, then you already have held off attacks for a while.
If you havent attacked in the buildup to this, you are nearly always going to loose.
The only thing I can suddjest, is to download some game replays and watch what the (Terrain in this case), player does.