10 ms·

Ridiculously excited. Nothing in my life was better than BW+1.6. Rotated those games religiously and went pro, wasted about 5 years of my life but damn it was t

by rublev 10y ago

Ridiculously excited. Nothing in my life was better than BW+1.6. Rotated those games religiously and went pro, wasted about 5 years of my life but damn it was the most fun 5. Love that new life is being breathed into such a mechanically (but graphically lacking) engaging game.

oxide 10y ago
I used to play an MMO called The Realm Online from ~2003-2007. It had a player-run economy, so I offered millions of the in-game currency for someone's Starcraft CD key, as all I had was a burnt CD. I was itching to play online with a friend of mine. Eventually I got that key and enjoyed many, many hours of online play with a good friend. I never did get to play the expansion, although I'm well aware it's considered the definitive experience. Counter-Strike is similarly something else I had to miss out on, I just didn't have a way to purchase games digitally. Steam was around as well as services like Direct2Drive but my Mom didn't have a bank account, so I just accepted that I'd be missing out on these multiplayer experiences as a teenager. I did manage to keep up my subscription to The Realm for a long time, but that was thanks to the wonderful concept of money in birthday cards. Once WoW launched it basically killed The Realm anyway, I could have spent that money more wisely in retrospect. Starcraft was a rare multiplayer exception for me, along with Jedi Academy, and UT. It'll always have a place in my heart because of that. Later in life, I ended up putting over 800 hours into CS:GO and now own over 300 games on Steam, so I lived my multiplayer dreams eventually. I've shelled out enough for Hearthstone packs by now that I don't feel guilty about trading that now worthless huge chunk of The Realm Online gold for that valuable Starcraft CD key.
- CydeWeys 10y ago
  Wow, that's the first time I've heard anyone talk about The Realm in a long time. I played it from its release in 1996 until EverQuest came out in 1999. How did you end up getting into The Realm in 2003, long after its prime?
  - speeder 10y ago
    I never played it myself, but I last I checked the game is still running just fine! (as in, there are official servers to pay subscription and play the game).
    - Drithe 10y ago
      Account Creation: http://185.142.236.230/account/ http://185.142.236.230/account/ Client Download: https://anonfile.com/33Hcx8bfbc/Client_-_3.172.zip https://anonfile.com/33Hcx8bfbc/Client_-_3.172.zip (run sciw.exe in windows xp compatibility mode if it doesn't work or admin mode) There happens to be a fresh private server with 100+ players during primetime!
      - oxide 10y ago
        Wow, this is a long time dream come true. The last private server was lost long ago to the sands of time.
      - oxide 10y ago
        Thank you so much for this. I never would have heard of it otherwise. All my old friends are here already as well, this was honestly awesome to find when I got up this morning.
  - oxide 10y ago
    A good friend of mine played the game, I'd often be over at his house playing it with him or simply watching him play. The novelty was phenomenal to me at the tender age of 12. Here was a chat room, and a game, all rolled into one. I'd never seen anything like it. I wanted my own account. It would be a few years until that happened. When I was 15 I started with an annual subscription for 49.99, playing on my mother's computer at first after assuring her it wasn't a virus. This was before the launch of DAoC, so maybe early 03? The game still had a relatively active population (500-750 players near peak hours, something I would scoff at today and declare dead. relative!) After the launch of WoW in '04 the regulars became less regular and eventually the population was under 200, then 100, etc. It had 25 players online last time I got nostalgic and installed it to hear the startup tune. Anyway, I had a great time with The Realm Online. I loved it. I made friends and liked talking to them. So I stuck around and watched it slowly wither away, at least until 2007-8 or so. It was clear that the "developers" who purchased the rights to the game had no interest in developing the game any further. I still think The Realm Online would do fine in the F2P space, stuffed full of microtransactions. The turn based combat would be perfect for a touchscreen. Apparently it's coded in a dead language invented by Sierra, so I'm not holding my breath. It'd be nice to see a private server, at least. Over the years I made many friends, some of whom I still regularly play games with. I imagine many folks had a similar experience with their first MMORPG, whenever I see people talk about Runescape or WoW, I always think of The Realm and my time with it.
- ido 10y ago
  OT but how did your mum not have a bank account? Was this common where you're from? I can't imagine it working anywhere i've lived (for one you won't be able to get paid).
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ferentchak 10y ago
    As a poor American you will run into many people that don't have a bank account. Lots of things can hurt your credit here and once your credit is wrecked it can be challenging to have even a savings account. There is an entire industry here to serve (many would say take advantage of) people in this situation. Many shops will cash payroll and government checks for you since otherwise you would not be able to. Usually from what I have seen they charge somewhere around a dollar per hundred dollars on the check.
jacobolus 10y ago
I occasionally watched professional Korean Starcraft games for a few years. The graphics of Broodwar are so much better for the audience’s sake (and I assume also for the players’) than Starcraft 2 or similar 3D games. Having pixel sprites and a fixed isometric view is a huge advantage in character legibility/contrast. 3D everything demos well and looks more “realistic” (i.e. more like a high-budget space film), but it’s horrible when you’re trying to see past the clutter to figure out what’s going on. All the rotating cameras and fancy animated backgrounds and tricky lighting and so on are pure gimmicks which distract from the gameplay.
- gribbly 10y ago
  Exactly, for top down rts games, 3d offers nothing but increased hardware demands. It's not as if you have anything to gain by zooming in on a unit or rotate around it, pre-rendered graphics will look better and have less hardware demands.
  - debaserab2 10y ago
    The main problem with 2d sprites is animation. 2d sprites will never compare to 3d animation in terms of what an object can visually communicate to a player about what is happening in a game. In full 3d, animation can tell a player a lot about what is happening on the battle field, such as where the bounding boxes actually are near a unit, what the actual angle is they are using to target a unit, or how a unit is physically affected by different buffs/debuffs. Although I find well made 2d games to be remarkable for their own reasons, I don't there is a legitimate argument as to which provides the superior gameplay.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      For me 2D graphics do look better (especially SC1 vs. SC2) because of the art style. When you go from hand-drawn sprites to 3D models, you always lose quality, because there's more computation to be done than any hardware could reasonably perform in real-time. Some games try to hide it by altering their art style, e.g. by making more cartoony-looking units. Warcraft 3 did that, and SC2 seems to have inherited it. Which for me was huge negative - the general atmosphere of SC1 was dark and serious; SC2 feels lightweight and more like a comedy at times.
tomashertus 10y ago
Went pro? Where did you play? I was semi-pro Age of X player from 2002 - 2008, Never had chance to switch pro, since AoEII/III(M) were not so hyped and there were little money comparing to W3, SC:BW and Quake3. Still one of the best memories in my life.
lillesvin 10y ago
> wasted about 5 years of my life [...] it was the most fun 5. Sounds like they weren't really wasted after all. :)
- rublev 10y ago
  If I had fun for 100 years it would be a waste of time because after a certain amount of 'fun' your consumption turns into a net negative and becomes over consumption.
Humdeee 10y ago
What was your screen name? I was on team canada for a few years and largely involved in the scene so I'd definitely recognize it if it was around the early to mid 2000's. What team?
fuckthis 10y ago
The real reason it's coming back, is because some places SC1 is more popular than WOL. Play the two and you'll see the difference.

by rublev 10y ago

oxide 10y ago

I used to play an MMO called The Realm Online from ~2003-2007. It had a player-run economy, so I offered millions of the in-game currency for someone's Starcraft CD key, as all I had was a burnt CD. I was itching to play online with a friend of mine. Eventually I got that key and enjoyed many, many hours of online play with a good friend. I never did get to play the expansion, although I'm well aware it's considered the definitive experience. Counter-Strike is similarly something else I had to miss out on, I just didn't have a way to purchase games digitally. Steam was around as well as services like Direct2Drive but my Mom didn't have a bank account, so I just accepted that I'd be missing out on these multiplayer experiences as a teenager. I did manage to keep up my subscription to The Realm for a long time, but that was thanks to the wonderful concept of money in birthday cards. Once WoW launched it basically killed The Realm anyway, I could have spent that money more wisely in retrospect. Starcraft was a rare multiplayer exception for me, along with Jedi Academy, and UT. It'll always have a place in my heart because of that. Later in life, I ended up putting over 800 hours into CS:GO and now own over 300 games on Steam, so I lived my multiplayer dreams eventually. I've shelled out enough for Hearthstone packs by now that I don't feel guilty about trading that now worthless huge chunk of The Realm Online gold for that valuable Starcraft CD key.

CydeWeys 10y ago
Wow, that's the first time I've heard anyone talk about The Realm in a long time. I played it from its release in 1996 until EverQuest came out in 1999. How did you end up getting into The Realm in 2003, long after its prime?
- speeder 10y ago
  I never played it myself, but I last I checked the game is still running just fine! (as in, there are official servers to pay subscription and play the game).
  - Drithe 10y ago
    Account Creation: http://185.142.236.230/account/ http://185.142.236.230/account/ Client Download: https://anonfile.com/33Hcx8bfbc/Client_-_3.172.zip https://anonfile.com/33Hcx8bfbc/Client_-_3.172.zip (run sciw.exe in windows xp compatibility mode if it doesn't work or admin mode) There happens to be a fresh private server with 100+ players during primetime!
    - oxide 10y ago
      Wow, this is a long time dream come true. The last private server was lost long ago to the sands of time.
    - oxide 10y ago
      Thank you so much for this. I never would have heard of it otherwise. All my old friends are here already as well, this was honestly awesome to find when I got up this morning.
- oxide 10y ago
  A good friend of mine played the game, I'd often be over at his house playing it with him or simply watching him play. The novelty was phenomenal to me at the tender age of 12. Here was a chat room, and a game, all rolled into one. I'd never seen anything like it. I wanted my own account. It would be a few years until that happened. When I was 15 I started with an annual subscription for 49.99, playing on my mother's computer at first after assuring her it wasn't a virus. This was before the launch of DAoC, so maybe early 03? The game still had a relatively active population (500-750 players near peak hours, something I would scoff at today and declare dead. relative!) After the launch of WoW in '04 the regulars became less regular and eventually the population was under 200, then 100, etc. It had 25 players online last time I got nostalgic and installed it to hear the startup tune. Anyway, I had a great time with The Realm Online. I loved it. I made friends and liked talking to them. So I stuck around and watched it slowly wither away, at least until 2007-8 or so. It was clear that the "developers" who purchased the rights to the game had no interest in developing the game any further. I still think The Realm Online would do fine in the F2P space, stuffed full of microtransactions. The turn based combat would be perfect for a touchscreen. Apparently it's coded in a dead language invented by Sierra, so I'm not holding my breath. It'd be nice to see a private server, at least. Over the years I made many friends, some of whom I still regularly play games with. I imagine many folks had a similar experience with their first MMORPG, whenever I see people talk about Runescape or WoW, I always think of The Realm and my time with it.
ido 10y ago
OT but how did your mum not have a bank account? Was this common where you're from? I can't imagine it working anywhere i've lived (for one you won't be able to get paid).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ferentchak 10y ago
  As a poor American you will run into many people that don't have a bank account. Lots of things can hurt your credit here and once your credit is wrecked it can be challenging to have even a savings account. There is an entire industry here to serve (many would say take advantage of) people in this situation. Many shops will cash payroll and government checks for you since otherwise you would not be able to. Usually from what I have seen they charge somewhere around a dollar per hundred dollars on the check.

jacobolus 10y ago

I occasionally watched professional Korean Starcraft games for a few years. The graphics of Broodwar are so much better for the audience’s sake (and I assume also for the players’) than Starcraft 2 or similar 3D games. Having pixel sprites and a fixed isometric view is a huge advantage in character legibility/contrast. 3D everything demos well and looks more “realistic” (i.e. more like a high-budget space film), but it’s horrible when you’re trying to see past the clutter to figure out what’s going on. All the rotating cameras and fancy animated backgrounds and tricky lighting and so on are pure gimmicks which distract from the gameplay.

gribbly 10y ago
Exactly, for top down rts games, 3d offers nothing but increased hardware demands. It's not as if you have anything to gain by zooming in on a unit or rotate around it, pre-rendered graphics will look better and have less hardware demands.
- debaserab2 10y ago
  The main problem with 2d sprites is animation. 2d sprites will never compare to 3d animation in terms of what an object can visually communicate to a player about what is happening in a game. In full 3d, animation can tell a player a lot about what is happening on the battle field, such as where the bounding boxes actually are near a unit, what the actual angle is they are using to target a unit, or how a unit is physically affected by different buffs/debuffs. Although I find well made 2d games to be remarkable for their own reasons, I don't there is a legitimate argument as to which provides the superior gameplay.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    For me 2D graphics do look better (especially SC1 vs. SC2) because of the art style. When you go from hand-drawn sprites to 3D models, you always lose quality, because there's more computation to be done than any hardware could reasonably perform in real-time. Some games try to hide it by altering their art style, e.g. by making more cartoony-looking units. Warcraft 3 did that, and SC2 seems to have inherited it. Which for me was huge negative - the general atmosphere of SC1 was dark and serious; SC2 feels lightweight and more like a comedy at times.

tomashertus 10y ago

Went pro? Where did you play? I was semi-pro Age of X player from 2002 - 2008, Never had chance to switch pro, since AoEII/III(M) were not so hyped and there were little money comparing to W3, SC:BW and Quake3. Still one of the best memories in my life.

lillesvin 10y ago

> wasted about 5 years of my life [...] it was the most fun 5. Sounds like they weren't really wasted after all. :)

rublev 10y ago
If I had fun for 100 years it would be a waste of time because after a certain amount of 'fun' your consumption turns into a net negative and becomes over consumption.

Humdeee 10y ago

What was your screen name? I was on team canada for a few years and largely involved in the scene so I'd definitely recognize it if it was around the early to mid 2000's. What team?

fuckthis 10y ago

The real reason it's coming back, is because some places SC1 is more popular than WOL. Play the two and you'll see the difference.