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StarCraft (video game)

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For the champion New Zealand bred race horse, see Starcraft (horse).
StarCraft
Front cover of the StarCraft installation CD
Developer(s)Blizzard Entertainment
Publisher(s)Blizzard Entertainment
Composer(s)
  • Tracy W. Bush Edit this on Wikidata
Platform(s)Windows, Mac OS, Mac OS X and Nintendo 64
ReleaseApril 1, 1998 (NA)
Genre(s)RTS
Mode(s)Single player, multiplayer

StarCraft (SC) is a real-time strategy computer game by Blizzard Entertainment. Introduced in 1998, it was the best-selling computer game in that year and won the Origins Award for Best Strategy Computer Game of 1998. It is praised for being a benchmark of real-time strategy (RTS) games, due to its depth, intensity, and game balance. Blizzard estimated in 2005 that 9 million copies of StarCraft and Starcraft: Brood War had been sold since its release[1], and it has achieved an international cult-like status in the computer gaming world, especially in its online multiplayer form.

Set in a "space opera" environment, StarCraft is broadly similar to Blizzard's popular high fantasy RTS Warcraft II, but during the development process, there were great efforts to steer the game away from being simply "Warcraft in Space," and eventually the entire game engine was rewritten to achieve the desired result. The game's main storyline follows a war among three galactic species: the human Terrans, the hive mind-sharing insectoid Zerg, and the humanoid Protoss warriors. It was initially released for Windows, and later for Macintosh and the Nintendo 64.

The game's popularity in South Korea has been unexpectedly high, with nationally-recognized tournaments, training groups, professional players, and televised cable-access competitions that often broadcast live tournaments.

Basic gameplay

File:Zergbase.jpg
A Zerg base with three Hatcheries, and a Lair in its center.
Main article: Gameplay of StarCraft

StarCraft is centered on acquisition and control of limited resources, which are needed to construct combat units and buildings. StarCraft features two kinds of resources: minerals (required for all units) and Vespene gas (required for nonbasic units and upgrades). Minerals appear as blue crystalline formations protruding from the ground and are 'harvested' by worker units (drones, SCVs, or probes, depending on the race) while Vespene gas appears as green clouds forming above geysers. In addition, players can create only a limited number of units: each unit has a "supply/support" rating roughly correlated with that unit's combat strength, and players must maintain enough unit-supporters (Supply Depots for Terrans, Pylons for the Protoss and Overlords for the Zerg) to supply their forces.

Players can choose to construct a variety of unit types and buildings that provide specialized upgrades in order to eliminate their computer or human opponents. Management of resources, expansion to control resource locations, and effective application of offensive and defensive combat tactics are the keys to victory. The unit types available to each race define its racial identity. The Protoss can field powerful and expensive warriors and machinery, while the Zerg count on sheer numbers and speed to overwhelm their opponents. The Terrans are the versatile and flexible alternative to both races, with an emphasis on specialization and combined arms. The Terrans are often considered the "in-between" race in that they tend to benefit from more moderate conditions, whereas the other two races tend to prefer one extreme or the other.

Balance and design improvements

StarCraft made significant improvements over Warcraft II, which was criticized for the fact that apart from the differences in their appearance, the game's two races were closely similar, with only a few minor differences in available spells and the cost of upgrades. In addition, these small differences had an enormous impact on play balance, especially at higher skill levels. StarCraft improved upon this by adopting the technique introduced by the Strategic Simulations game War Wind, which had sides with obvious asymmetries.

Though the game's three races (Protoss, Terran, and Zerg) were slightly imbalanced when the game was first released, the expansion pack and no fewer than thirteen patches (of which four affected the game play mechanics) have balanced the three races to most people's satisfaction. The Brood War expansion released by Blizzard in 1998 provides several new units for each race (which dramatically modified the game play) and a new campaign for each race, continuing the story begun in StarCraft (see StarCraft storyline). Most people who still play use this expansion and agree that it changed the game significantly for the better, although some still prefer the original game.

Multiplayer

The game also includes multiplayer gaming on Blizzard's own Internet gaming service Battle.net. One can play against opponents free of any charge beyond the original purchase of the game and local Internet access fees. Many fans enjoy playing in groups against the computer in skirmish games. While the AI is considered to be weak compared to a good player, decent early game performance can make it an enjoyable opponent for more casual players. Fans are also able to create unfair maps that are advantageous to the computer and can be extremely hard to beat. A few years after the release of the game, Blizzard also released several free maps of a higher difficulty. Over time, the patches have also improved the AI.

For cooperative play, several people can play the same team (controlling the same pieces), or different teams that are "allied" so they do not hurt each other. Checking "allied victory" will also make the game victory happen when teams that are allied vanquish all other teams.


Single-player storyline

Main article: StarCraft storyline

Template:Spoiler The plot of the original StarCraft game revolves around the Terran civilization in the Koprulu Sector, which was founded by former prisoners. The most powerful Terran faction is the Terran Confederacy. It is opposed by other factions, such as the terrorist organization "Sons of Korhal". The arrival of the Zerg, led by the Overmind and its Cerebrates, greatly complicates matters for the Terrans. The Zerg Swarm is, however, closely followed by a Protoss fleet, led by High Templar Executor Tassadar, which burns down all worlds the Zerg infest.

After the Protoss destroyed the Confederate colony on Chau Sara, the Zerg are used by the rebel organization Sons of Korhal, whose leader Arcturus Mengsk lures them to a number of Confederate installations using psi-emitters to further his own goals. Mengsk acquires the services of General Edmund Duke, a Confederate general and sacrifices his right-hand woman, the psychic Sarah Kerrigan, to the Zerg after she begins to object to his morals and tactics. This action alienates another one of his followers, Jim Raynor, who flees from Mengsk with a small number of soldiers.

After the Confederacy's fall, Arcturus Mengsk reorganizes the Terran worlds he controls into the Terran Dominion, crowning himself Emperor. Meanwhile, the Zerg flee to the planet Char with their prize, Kerrigan, in a cocoon.

Tassadar discovers that he can disrupt the Overmind's control over the Swarm by eliminating its Cerebrate servants with the help of the Dark Templar, a group of Protoss who have forsaken their ancestral psionic powers and the religion of the Khala. While on Char, Tassadar encounters one of the Overmind's newest servants, the recently infested Kerrigan, a powerful psychic.

The involvement of the fallen Dark Templar will prove to be fateful; indeed, while slaying the Cerebrate Zasz, the Dark Templar leader Zeratul briefly comes in psychic contact with the Overmind, which is then informed of the Protoss home-world Aiur's location and directs its Swarm towards the Protoss world. This contact also gives Zeratul knowledge of the origin of the Zerg.

The Zerg inflict a number of heavy defeats upon the Protoss, who fight back bitterly, but are at the same time involved in a civil war between the Protoss high authority, the Conclave, and the alliance between Tassadar and the Dark Templar. In a desperate attempt to put an end to the Zerg's destructive rampage, Tassadar, Zeratul, and the remaining Protoss unite their strengths with Terran forces and attack the Overmind itself. They succeed in destroying it because Tassadar sacrifices himself, greatly assisting in its destruction.

See also: StarCraft: Brood War

Influences

While it has many similarities with its conceptual predecessor Warcraft II, StarCraft also draws heavily from characters and scenarios taken from many science fiction works, most notably popular movies. For example, many characteristic elements of the Terran race in StarCraft are reminiscent of James Cameron's Aliens movie. Terran buildings much resemble the installations of the Hadley's Hope colony in Aliens; the resemblance is especially obvious in StarCraft's cutscenes (see cutscene The Amerigo). Terran Marines were also clearly inspired by Aliens' USCM Marines; both the Terran Marine and the Terran Dropship units in StarCraft directly quote characters from the movie. The Gauss Rifle used by the Terran Marines has an LED digital ammo display much like the Pulse Rifle from Aliens. The Zerg Hydralisk and infestation process are also references to Aliens' Xenomorphs.

The popular Warhammer 40,000 series from Games Workshop also obviously had an influence on StarCraft's design, plot development, and visual style, particularly in the resemblance of the Zerg to Warhammer's Tyranids and the Protoss to Warhammer's Eldar as well as the Terrans to Warhammer's Imperial Guard and Space Marines. These examples are some of the more definitive references that could be made. Others believe that the game contains subtle references to Star Wars and Top Gun, the books Starship Troopers, Childhood's End, Fahrenheit 451, and, the TV shows Star Trek, Space Battleship Yamato, and Robotech.

Because of its vast popularity, StarCraft has become extremely influential in the computer and video gaming fields. In the years immediately following its release, it became to be considered the standard by which all real-time strategy games are judged. [2]

Cast

Culture

Popularity

Even as of 2005, StarCraft is still one of the most popular online games in the world. The game itself has its own culture, similar to Slashdot's and Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) communities.

In the early 2000s, the game became extremely popular among South Korean online gamers, to the point of being exaggeratedly referred to as the national sport of South Korea by avid gamers, and the majority of StarCraft players now come from that country. The origin of this unusually high level of popularity is likely a combination of StarCraft's suitability for competitive multiplayer and the fact that it was released during the beginning of the boom in popularity of "cybercafes" in Seoul, resulting in a perfect opportunity for the game to catch on.

In South Korea, StarCraft professional gamers, known by their pseudonyms such as SlayerS `BoxeR`, Iloveoov, [Oops]Reach, [ReD]NaDa, [NC]...YellOw, and Nal_rA are celebrities: their games are broadcast over the television channels MBC Game and Ongamenet. A selected few have made substantial monetary gains through this. For example, one highly successful player, "[Red]Nada", signed a 3 year, $500,000 (USD) contract in 2004. Another example is "SlayerS `BoxeR" who can, if all goes well, make $780,000 (USD) in the next 3 years, making him the highest paid StarCraft player ever. Some players can earn a decent to good living from TV-contracts and sponsoring and tournament prizes. Also extremely well known for their skills are Chocobo2 and ArbiterShadow from New Zealand. However, the lower-echelon pro players tend to subsist on relatively small wages. Many pro gamers playing StarCraft use every minute of their spare time to play, in order to maintain preparation for the highly competitive leagues. Superior StarCraft and Warcraft III players are often referred to as "gosu". Less than average skilled players are often called hasu. Professional gaming in South Korea is an example of how e-sports can attain a social status similar to physical sports.

Also of note is the infamous Operation CWAL (Can't Wait Any Longer). Operation CWAL formed in 1997, as a writers group, in the StarCraft Suggestions Forum in an attempt to "liberate" a final copy of StarCraft, which appeared obviously completed despite numerous delays on the part of Blizzard Entertainment. Blizzard Entertainment has gone as far as to give special thanks to this group in the manual for StarCraft, as well as including their name as a cheat code in the game (typing "operation cwal" during a single player game will dramatically decrease the time required to build units). While not very active today, Operation CWAL remains as one of Blizzard Entertainment's older and more loyal fan groups. Many CWALers are waiting for release information regarding another RTS in the StarCraft universe.

Novels and eBooks

StarCraft even became an inspiration for the creation of official novels and eBooks (which were generally not especially well-received by fans). Four novels were officially authorized by Blizzard Entertainment:

In addition, Blizzard Entertainment authorized two short stories in Amazing Stories magazine, entitled StarCraft: Hybrid and StarCraft: Revelations.

Numerous fan fiction works also take place in the StarCraft universe.

Custom scenarios

The game comes with a campaign and map editor called StarEdit. StarEdit has many features, including a trigger system that allows one to make radical changes to the way a map works, readily giving gamers the ability to create custom map scenarios (also called MOD's). Thousands of custom scenarios are available, giving the game a refreshing variety. The StarCraft map-making community has also constructed additional editors or functionalities that grant the user even more power to modify the game.

Scenarios with sets of rules, objectives, and units entirely different from those of "regular" Melee games have been created. Popular user-created scenarios include Evolves and its many variants, StarCraft Diplomacy, Golem Madness, various Defense maps, RPG maps, Bound maps, and the ubiquitous Tower Defense. Such custom scenarios are often inspired by television shows (Dragon Ball Z, Pokémon), real-world events (Napoleonic Wars, World War I, World War II, the American Civil War) or scenes from books and movies (Troy, The Lord of the Rings). Maps with infinite minerals (such as "Fastest Map Ever" and "0Clutter") are also popular.

The popularity of custom maps is not limited to only custom maps played online. StarEdit allows the mapmaker to "link" several maps, single player "campaigns" (long scenarios played out over several maps, hence the name) have become prominent in the community. Following the revolutionary Antioch Chronicles' lead, many campaigns include "MODs" that add new "heroes" (i.e. the mapmakers create new art files to be imported in to StarCraft, thus creating completely new units and characters - something which can't be done using StarEdit). Popular campaigns include Campaign Creations' Legacy of the Confederation, Life of a Marine, and StarCraft.org's official campaigns: The Shifters and Fields of Ash.

More powerful, third-party alternatives to StarEdit (including StarCraft X-tra Editor, StarForge, and SCM Draft.) allow users to "stack" multiple mineral fields and buildings on top each other, change player colors, use hidden AI scripts, protect maps from common theft, run sizeless sounds directly from the StarCraft disc, change the color of text, compressing their map, and in more advanced areas, place raw sprites, sprite-units and disabled units, among other things.

The uproar of custom StarCraft maps has even produced a community of map makers, along with a variety of map-making clans whose sole function is the creation and distribution of custom maps. Some popular clan include (U)UnKnOwN, Operation Onslaught, and Map Producers. Though the community is open to anyone willing to develop a new map, some "elites" are still revered as the best of all time - including (U)Bolt_Head, Tuxedo-Templar, and Yoshi_da_Sniper. The community funtions with the help of various online forums, like StarEdit.net or BlizzForums.com.

Replays, audio commentaries, and VODs

File:StarcraftScreenshot.png
Replay-Screenshot Zerg vs. Terran

StarCraft enables the player to record a game and save it as a replay, which can then be viewed with any other copy of StarCraft, displaying the entire course of the game. As of 2005, there are many websites that host replays of players with different skill levels, though pro-level replays are relatively rarely released, for reasons of team secrecy and because the policies of pro leagues forbid it in some cases. Many applications, such as BWChart and Lasgo's Observer Pack, have been developed by fans to analyze replays in detail, and compute statistics such as the number of actions per minute (APM).

One of the most useful feature of replays is the ability for people to snoop in on tactics of good players. For example, one of the hardest task in Starcraft Broodwar is to beat 7 computer opponents in melee on any map. As an example Games Depot: Starcraft Broodwar 1v7 replay contains a replay of one protoss against seven melee computer opponents on Theatre of War and was played by P. Lin.

Replays are sometimes accompanied by an audio commentary recorded by the player or an experienced observer during the game, or after the fact, while watching the replay. This can be particularly interesting for people new to the game, who can learn from more experienced players pointing out things about a replay they would not have seen on their own, or simply for entertainment. The audio files can be produced and played separately from the replays using third-party audio recording and playback tools, in which case the viewer has to manually synchronize the audio track with the replay, which is read from the StarCraft application. Alternatively, auxiliary applications such as RWA can be used to ensure synchronization. The RWAtools are a set of freeware tools, that create valid replay files, additionally containing an Ogg audio stream. During replay the commentary is kept in sync with the game.

VODs (from "Video On Demand") are videos that show the screen of a commentator (or sometimes player) during a (usually) pro-level game. They are (legally or not) available from a variety of websites, and are ripped from Korean television or Internet streams. They usually come in the ASF video file format for Windows Media Player or in the WMV format. Because they are compressed with an MPEG-4 codec and the file size needs to be small, there is a significant quality loss in comparison to watching a replay. VODs are usually accompanied by enthusiastic announcing from the Korean commentators, and the occasional crowd shot.

News

On 10 August 2005, it was reported that a 28-year-old man named Dongmin Choi from Taegu, South Korea died after playing a 49-hour marathon session of StarCraft in an internet cafe. [3]

Sequel

Fans impatiently await the creation of StarCraft II. Blizzard has announced that they are interested in making a sequel to their popular game, and there is evidence that they may have started design for StarCraft II in late 2004. This includes posts by Blizzard officials on the Battle.net forums asking for suggestions for such a game, the lack of other projects for Blizzard after World of Warcraft's completion, and an Easter egg unlocked after completing Warcraft III on the most difficult setting, as well as a leak about a 2007 release from HanbitSoft, the Korean publisher of StarCraft, but the development of a sequel has not yet been officially announced. Blizzard is working on a first person shooter/third person shooter, StarCraft: Ghost to be released in 2006; the change in genre from RTS to TPS and absence of a PC version aroused considerable protests among many of the StarCraft faithful, though others eagerly anticipate the game.

Awards

  • Walk of Game inductee. StarCraft will receive a star on the floor of the Metreon in San Francisco in early 2006.
  • #7, Top 100 Games of All Time: 2005 Edition - IGN.[4] This list included console games as well as PC games, and StarCraft placed #2 among PC games, behind Sid Meier's Civilization II.
  • #7, Top 100 Games of All Time: 2003 Edition - IGN. [5]
  • "The Standard by Which All Real-Time Strategy Games Are Judged", GameSpot Presents: The Greatest Games of All Time[2]
  • #9, Top 100 Games of All Time - Entertainment Weekly/G4.tv
  • IGN went through their users database and tallied up all of the games people listed as their favorite game of all time, and listed the top ten. "Using data gathered from our own users.ign.com collection tracker, we have compiled a set of brand-new lists for your perusal. The Top 10 Most Popular Games charts only include games that have been released. The list is current as of January 17 and is based on a combination of total occurrences and rating value of games on your collection lists." StarCraft and Brood War actually had enough votes independent of each other to be #1 and #5 on the list respectively, out of ten games.
  • #18, The Ten Best Games Ever as voted by GameFAQs readers.[6] It was the highest rated PC game on the list.
  • Number-one selling PC Game of 1998 - PC Data
  • Other awards, including numerous Game of the Year awards, are listed on Blizzard Entertainment's official Awards Page.

Notes

  1. ^ Blizzard Entertainment. 2005. Blizzard Entertainment Unveils Key New Starcraft: Ghost Features at E3, Press Release
  2. ^ a Gamespot. The Greatest Games of All Time
  3. ^ IGN. 2005. IGNs top 100 Games of All Time
  4. ^ IGN. 2003. IGNs top 100 Games of All Time
  5. ^ GameFAQs.10-Year Anniversary Contest - The 10 Best Games Ever

References

  • Underwood, Peter, Bill Roper, Chris Metzen and Jeffrey Vaughn. StarCraft (Manual). Irvine, Calif.: Blizzard Entertainment, 1998.
  • Metzen, Chris and Samuel Moore. "StarCraft: Revelations." Amazing Stories no. 596 (Spring 1999): 20–27.
  • Neilson, Micky. “StarCraft: Hybrid.” Amazing Stories no. 601 (Spring 2000): 70–75.
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