Getting to Gold League – One Gamer’s Climb up Starcraft 2’s Ladder

The brutally competitive, cutthroat, do-or-die Starcraft 2 ladder wasn’t going to claim me but I knew I was no MC. I had started playing Starcraft since its early days ten years ago, but was always afraid of the 1 vs 1 scene. Sticking to barely competitive team games and “arcade” games where the stakes were low – I had yet to overcome my fear of online competition. Somehow, in Starcraft 2, I felt I had to make the leap into the competitive 1 vs 1 scene to be a “real” Starcraft player.  After watching MLG competitions and whencheese fails humorcasts, I knew I was missing something by not playing one on one games.

As I selected the one vs one match icon and clicked the find match button I gulped. Each time you looked for an opponent to start a match, the game stalls as you wait to find an opponent. An ominous sound played as I waited for the computer to look for my first competitor. After what felt like an eternity waiting, I faced a Terran enemy.

“GL HF” he said. Good Luck, Have Fun was the traditional Starcraft greetings between gamers at the start of a game. After 15 minutes my Terran adversary sieged my base and I lost.

“What could I do better?” I asked him.

“Expand earlier.” He replied.

My first ten games on the ladder were brutal - involving relatively unskilled, unplanned tactics against better gamers. Learning through trial and error, I learned to abuse air units against Zerg opponents. Triumphantly, I get my “zealot” portrait after my first ten wins with my chosen race – Protoss.

I would learn, fail and then grow stronger. Every game pitted me against a human opponent making decisions, issuing commands and strategizing. My Protoss strategy had been honed from watching replays of professional players, and Day9 tutorials. Survive the ten minute marine/marauder push by Terrans. Let your nexus tank before engaging, then outmacro and win in the late game. Against Protoss go for 4 gates and then colossi. For Zerg lean on two-base immortal sentry pushes.

I figured the secret to getting good at Starcraft was playing more games. But the nerve-wracking find-game countdown caused me to play no more than one or two games a day just out of anxiety. But I couldn’t get better without playing more. Time for a psychological tune-up, I figured.

“It doesn’t matter what league you are. It doesn’t matter what achievements you have or what portrait you have. Just enjoy the game.” I told myself.

I discarded my zealot achievement portrait in favor of the beginner portrait everyone gets by default -  a partially bearded, vaguely middle eastern man wearing earmuffs and a ballcap. I had to take the pressure off myself if I wanted to play more games and overcome the fear and anxiety of competitive laddering.

The secret to overcoming ladder anxiety in Starcraft is to take the pressure off yourself to win. Karma only uses the “Kachinsky” portrait when laddering competitively.

I started learning unit counters through trial and error. My stalkers were weak against marauders, but zealots and force fields would allow me to prevail. I tended to get four-gated to death by other Protoss, but by four-gating in turn I at least had a fighting chance against Protoss opponents.

50 games in I was winning about half of my games against silver league players and all my games against bronze players.

I needed to improve. I started looking for resources online - using day9 beginner tutorials, reading up build orders on team liquid, asking for help on online forums and watching professionals play in MLG. The most important changes were using pre-determined build orders going into each game. I honed my APM (actions per minute) until I could click more every game. I used hotkeys and kept my worker production up.

80 games in I was starting to win more than I lost against silver players. Now it was back to watching professional tutorials on youtube. I learned about my “mechanics”, how I use the mouse and minimap to efficiently control my game. I started learning about build order counters and started scouting for my opponents’ unit composition.

Suddenly I was winning against gold players. Wow! I kept at it

Macro – that’s how I was going win. Micro referred to the skilled micromanagement and control over individual units during battles. Macro referred to the overall management of your resources, expansions and bases. Drag out the game as you slowly whittle away your opponent and gain an economic advantage. Shut down your enemy’s expansions and protect your own. Shockingly I matched up against a metallically portraited opponent.

“What league are you?” I asked. No response.

After being outexpanded in a 20 minute game by my mystery enemy, I checked my loss screen. Platinum. I was being matched against opponents in higher leagues.

Then another match against a gamer with a bluish tinged potrait. After a rather brutal beat down with dark Templars and even carriers, I was confronted with the sheer skill of my enemy after the game – diamond league! The system was placing me against opponents as high as three leagues above my lowly silver character – and I was consistently losing.

Back to the drawing board.

I learned and anticipated the common "dirty tricks" of Starcraft: Zerg mutalisk harassment from the air, Protoss’ invisible dark Templars, and the dreaded Terran one-one-one. The one-one-one was a triple threat from aerial banshees, ground siege tanks and marine infantry. I was learning about more intriguing dangers from the Starcraft playbook and I was learning how to deal with them.

I started winning about half of my games against gold league players - a little more than half against Terran, and what felt like a lot less than half against Zerg players. I was determined to hone my anti-Zerg skills.

Up against a gold Zerg, I walled my base off. Making a strong ground army on my part, I scouted my alien opponent switching to air. Mutalisks I thought. I cannoned my bases and switched to High Templar. Rapt in attention, I gazed at my oversized monitor. Fingers stretched too far, nervous at the sudden influx of Zerg aerial harassment units. I cringed at the flock of feared Mutalisks entering my base.

Dancing archons, and anti-air units between my bases as I defended against relentless air harassment, I managed to hold for 20 minutes. I conservatively expanded. As the clock hit the 30 minute mark, I started releasing my upgraded ground army against my opponent’s large, but paper-Tiger, forces.

Finally, Gold League in Starcraft 2: My epic achievement in videogames: My 1v1 record is 130 games total with 69 wins. The other 1000 or so games are team games

After a 40 minute endurance match, my opponent surrendered – GG, short for “good game”. The score screen loaded up. I noticed a buttery-yellow frame surrounding my portrait. Could it be?

And then it hit me.

You have been promoted to gold league! A gold hexagon now replaced my meagre silver icon. Taking a moment to finally breathe, I knew this was the real beginning of my Starcraft 2 gaming career. After 130 ranked 1v1 matches and 69 wins I had moved from Silver league to Gold league. Tassadar only knows what I will face out there on the ladder. But, for now, I can celebrate. 

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Next Assassin’s Creed in India

Signs point to Next Assassin’s Creed in India

Arbaaz Mir apparently will be the Assassin in Assassin’s Creed Brahman, an upcoming graphic novel in the Assassin’s Creed franchise. The Ubisoft Graphic Novel is set in 19^th century India and has Arbaaz Mir fighting against oppression by the British. Developers have said before that Assassin’s Creed was about exploring areas that weren’t already boring or done to death. Assassin's Creed has already gone through the Middle East during medieval times, Italy in the Renassiance and now revolutionary America. Main characters have included: a Middle Eastern, Italian, and Aboriginal main character. Game Developer Alex Hutchinson has gone on the record previously with OXM pretty much outright saying settings of World War II, feudal Japan or Egypt are boring and done to death and practically guaranteeing that the next Assassin’s Creed will not be in those three setttings. At the same time, Hutchinson told OXM that Assassin’s Creed 3 writer Corey May really wanted to do India and that he (Hutchinson) would really love to do the Raj. Now given what we know about the interests of Assassin’s Creed’s creative director and writer, and the fact the graphic novel is set in India, there’s a strong possibility the next Assassin’s Creed will be set in India.

This is not Prince of Persia or Aladdin

Despite comments that an Indian Assassin’s creed would be too similar to Prince of Persia or well-ploughed territory in movies such as Aladdin, those two settings were actually set in the Middle East. Aladdin was allegedly set in the Middle East but the Disney cartoon movie imported a lot of ambiguously Indian elements – for example snake charmers on the streets. This might have been part of a trend in much of Western media to collapse the distinction between the Middle East and India, despite there being two separate worlds and peoples. Prince of Persia was not set in India, but in Persia and generally revolved around climbing mechanics rather than assassinations. Hence an Indian Assassin’s Creed would be a step in a new direction: clarifying where and what exactly India is, separating it from Middle Eastern imagery and showing us a different history and set of experiences.

Excellent: New setting, New Experiences, Unexplored Territory

Public ignorance of India as a unique setting distinct from the Middle East reveals why India would be a good direction for the series – it would explore a hithertho unexplored world. Exploring unique settings is pretty much at the core of the franchise, starting with Altair in the first Assassin’s Creed. Given Assassin’s Creed’s treatment of an Aboriginal main character, we can probably guess the next episode, if in India, will not just be a hodge podge of stereotypes or ambiguously Middle Eastern characters. One would expect confronting the East India Trading Company, the British Raj and possibly elements from neighboring China or Afghanistan. Additionally India has access to the Indian Ocean and so one could expect heavy ship and sea mechanics as well. This is also around the time of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, and could result in the main character being embroiled in major anti-British conflicts. Given the diversity of India and tensions at that time, this could be an excellent setting.

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Dragon Age - Why you should buy Dragon Age: Origins and NOT buy Dragon Age 2

If you’re new to PC RPGs, and looking for the best RPG games, the choice is simple. Buy Dragon Age by Bioware, which is on discount now, and skip out on Dragon Age 2 entirely. No Dragon Age 2 – nada, never. Additionally, don’t bother waiting for the upcoming Dragon Age Inquisition, as key Bioware Founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk left the company, leaving dim prospects for good future installments.

Dragon Age 2 got rid of Choice

Let’s start by getting why Dragon Age 2 isn’t worth buying  out of the way. The worst, most damning element of Dragon Age 2, is the lack of character choice: ie the inability to pick a race, lack of choice over family, last name or origin story. It was such a huge reversal of basic RPG game mechanics from the days of Baldur’s Gate I all the way to Dragon Age to do away with character customization. In Dragon Age 2 you had to basically play as a white anglosaxon human whose last name was Hawke and had a pre-determined family set. Hell, even Cloud Strife would have been better. That restrictive anti-role playing decision is just brutal and unforgiveable. Unlike most RPG games you couldn’t pick the inventory of your other party members.

Dragon Age 2's Story was made from the leftovers of the original Dragon Age

Some story elements that only made the B-list in the original Dragon Age, as mere sidequest fodder, have been promoted to the plot of the main storyline in Dragon Age 2. For example the simmering tension between the Templar and Mages, already well ploughed ground from Dragon Age, is forcefed down your throat in Dragon Age 2 – to the point where you just get sick of it. The overall plot of Dragon Age 2 is fairly linear with the key events being predetermined regardless of your player’s choice. Fine, that’s not such a big deal, except that the sidequests were lacklustre as well. Major optional bosses that should have been impressive, were placed in boring contexts with lacklustre stories. Most disturbingly, you play through the same maps over and over so the element of surprise, wonder and exploration is removed from the game. Some designer thought it was ok for you to shuffle through the same underground mine or woodshed over and over again.

Dragon Age 2 Had a thematic Identity Crisis 

The game lacked a certain “gritty realism” throughout. Yet it never quite adopted a totally cartoon like Yoshi’s Story theme either. The game just had a mixed, confused identity-crisis of what it was trying to be. The excessive cartoon like animations, ie crossbow bolts from the sky, felt like a need to appease newer gamers, but in the end it accomplished nothing. Former fans were alienated as Bioware’s old secret sauce was watered down; and new gamers may have found the combat accessible, but hardly impressive, compared to modern “twitch” action games. The lure of Dragon Age was overall game-world coherence coupled with tactical strategic combat. Bioware used to make great RPGs, and they went downhill, probably irreversibly, with Dragon Age 2.

Dragon Age 2 had cheesy cartoon-action combat in a pausable game

Additionally, Dragon Age 2’s combat system emphasized the least fun combat elements of RPGs of healing-management and endurance in combat over careful planning and finding the right strategy for the situation. There were too many endless easy mobs that swarmed you. There was an unnecessary focus on immediate party “positioning” during fights, akin to a console action game, that felt out of place. For example there was a rock boss that had random explosions where you had to hide behind pillars during the fight. This might be exciting in a spontaneous action game like Devil May Cry, but not in a strategic pausable game where you simply pause and command your party to move out of the way. Basically the combat wasn’t strategic in a way that requires you to think ahead to how to use of all of your party members’ abilities to overcome interesting bosses.

Dragon Age: Origins had Freedom and Good SideQuests

Dragon Age: Origins, on the other hand, allowed you to play as any one of a variety of different complex races, such as dwarves, elves, and humans. Additionally it allowed you to pick between different class origins in society, such as between Dwarven Nobility or Dwarven Commoners. Even the origin stories, which were short 10-15 minute segments at the start of the game, were gripping and entertaining. By the end of the story, you customized your entire party, made fateful choices that could result in character deaths, and got to pursue a variety of intriguing, well-crafted unique quests, including quests for ancient relics and exploration of the strange otherworldly “Fade”. The game maintained an emphasis on gritty realism throughout, and because of the seriousness of your choices, you tended to feel satisfied by the finale of the game – which was frankly a great end to a great game. The only problems were that the combat might have actually been too hard for newer entrants to RPGs and there might have been too much emphasis on the overcoming-the-blight-and-killing-darkspawn main theme that limited the developer’s ability to produce more sidequests.

Nevertheless, Dragon Age was a far better game than Dragon Age 2, and one of the best RPG games on the PC in a long time.

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Dark souls 2 “plot” possibly Spoiled, and Major Flaws with the original Dark Souls (Spoilers?)

Apparently Dark Souls 2 is set in a different “place” or “time” than Dark Souls 1 according to interviews with From Software Director Yui Tanimura. The story is entirely independent of the original Dark Souls though set in the same universe. This appears consistent with speculation that your character is connected to Gwyn, the final boss from the original Dark Souls. Previously the fur adorned getup of the trailer player-character appeared consistent with the look of Gwyn.

Dark Souls had No Plot

With that out of the way, let’s take a look at some of the most serious problems with the first Dark Souls. Dark souls had no plot. Dark Souls had a lot of lore - but not plot. There was the background of the fall of the Dragons, the treachery of Seathe and the tragic misadventures of Artorias. But the actual plot was: ring two bells, then pick up a giant bowl and fill it up until a door opens. The plot was trash, no worse than trash - mere worm compost, flushed down the toilet, then re-processed with the unuseable left-overs from a sausage-factory. It was unspeakably bad.

Dark Souls re-used Bosses

Two, the game had some cringe-inducing boss-names. Centipede Demon? Ceaseless Discharge? Are you serious? Why not Fire King? Demon Monkey? Big Boss? Wait that’s from another franchise.

Three, some of the bosses were repetetive. At least a significant number were heavily influenced by bosses from Demon Souls. Gwyn was like flamelurker. The Bellfry gargoyles were obviously easier versions of maneater. Iron golem was like Tower Knight. Bed of Chaos was like Dragon God.  Most offensively Dark Souls re-used the same boss design in the one game repeatedly. Firesage demon = asylum demon = Stray Demon. Bad.

Some Settings were Redundant and Uncreative

Four, some of the settings in Dark Souls sucked hard - large uncreative fields populated by the same bad guys repeated endlessly, endless Taurus demons and capra demons in a fiery volcano expanse, giant two-legged umm-monsters in a fiery expanse etc..  Some of these settings we’ve seen before and added no new player-experience. Blight town was a lot like the valley of defilement from Demon Souls and frankly should have been cut from the game. We don’t need another poison sewer/swamp with precarious platform level design. We had it and needed to try something different. We’ve also had enough of fiery volcanoes with fire demons, another setting we’ve seen before in Demon Souls.

Did I mention the plot sucked?

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