2010: A Space Blogyssey

I sometimes daydream about going back in history. Not in a cool way, though. I want to travel back to the time when Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos was first released, with all my present-day knowledge still intact, just to own it up and become a true cyberathlete legend. I know it sounds silly, but looking back at the really old replays, everyone sucked and I would've never lost a game (well, actually, I remember my terrible computer and internet connection totally freezing up the screen in any battle consisting of more than two and a half units, making "attack-move and hope for the best" my most everyday strategy).

Youtube user Downwhere has a fairly large collection of old Warcraft 3 replays, often commentated on by the old superstars of the day (Tillerman, Assasin etc.), for anyone who's interested. It's funny to see the low level of micro displayed by even the best players of the day, as well as the strange strategies used, funny imbalances abused and game-breaking bugs overused. Apparently, the ladder for most of Warcraft's early history was all but a joke, as I've seen for myself, after downloading really old replays and seeing the most ridiculous strategies and item imbalances (I didn't really play much back then, or at any decent level, so my memory on the subject is faint), like Goblin Landmines destroying your main hall two minutes into the game (an item that was quickly removed from ladder games. For that and more, watch this hilarious summary of imbalances and bugs (there is also a part two)) .

As far as Starcraft 2 goes, what with e-sports (ROFL) and micro being the key words Blizzard is attaching to it, I doubt we'll have as bad a player base early on. Conversely, however, I expect the game balance to be at least decent, right out of the box. Anything else must be seen as a failure from the "e-sports" team.

And with that, I would like to wish you, the reader, a happy new year. May 2010 be a good and prosperous year for us all.

Note: The original entry was quite a bit longer, but I figured it derailed itself too much and as such would be better off as two separate entries. Good news is it shouldn't take too long for me to publish it, you know, since it's basically already done.

Also, I spent a good thirty minutes thinking of a good and relevant title for this entry, until I snapped and just wrote something. Sue me.