(Was going to edit this in my other post - ****ing forums.... grr)

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Stop using Starcraft as an example, because I can guarantee you that you have NO idea why Starcraft is as popular as it is.

First of all, Starcraft can and will run on any god damn computer you can find. This certainly expands its market penetration, as in addition to being an old game, at the time, this meant it would run on damn-near anyone's computer. Haven't you ever noticed how other ugly-as-sin old-ass games are popular in the Korean market, such as CS 1.6?

Starcraft was able to attain easy penetration because at the time, it was the only RTS to get foreign market availability like it did. What was the other 'competition' in the RTS genre at the time? Total Annihilation? Yeah, exactly.

Another thing that helped Starcraft was that it had two 'firsts'. The first was battle.net. Battle.net made region-centric connectivity easy and painless, which was a massive improvement from clumsy IP-based lobby systems like Westwood Online. And yes, Battle.Net was also the first to have a ladder-system that was extremely intuitive. Effectively, Starcraft was the FIRST RTS to allow serious competitive gaming.

The other thing Starcraft did 'first' was have Use Custom Map Settings games. I don't know if you ever PLAYED Starcraft all those years ago, but most games were "DRAEGON BALL Z RPG LOL OMG !!!!!!!!!111 BGH x449999990000 JOIN PLZ", or "BUNKER WARZ XXXTREME ROFL JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOINNN". This DRAMATICALLY increased its appeal, as no other game had allowed you to so easily make scenarios and play them without downloading at atrocious 28k speeds. In fact, it was almost impossible to find a 'real' game of Starcraft that wasn't on a totally tripped-out map or used some sort of scripted scenario to change the game dramatically.

For these reasons, Starcraft's success can be attributed to FAR more than just being 'competitive friendly'. The accessability of the entire game made it massively popular, which in turn inspired a larger competitive scene. The snowball grew, and Starcraft reached a point where you simply just bought Starcraft because 'everyone else plays it'.

Yes, Starcraft had a ladder, but it was effectively the FIRST to have a ladder, and it's extremely easy to justify the success of competition in the game specifically because it took so long for other games to catch up to the ease that was battle.net.

And now for the coup-de-gras. It took over THREE YEARS of patches to get the game in a balanced state, so your assertion that 'competitive balance' somehow 'made' the game is a complete fallacy. People would've left the game long ago if balance was so fucking important. Clearly it wasn't.

KALI.

About build orders: build orders are hardly "an atrocity and have no place in a game that claims to be about strategy": even grand champions (in chess) have an opening set of moves. The analysis of the pros and cons of different opening moves is where the strategy lies in the beginning phase of any strategy game. It's when there are only 2 or 3 viable opening strategies that makes games suck. There are many openings that won't work in chess (just dumb ones), but there are tons that will. That's why chess has been played for millions of years: variability of strategy. There's not one opening that dominates chess: just as there shouldn't be a single build order that dominates sins. I'm assuming they're trying to do just that with the new patch, but it seems to me like TEC end up overpowered in the mid/late game now. That, however, is just my initial feeling. Another week or two of play should show that to be true or not.

And about competition: people play games because they are fun. They play competitively because they're hard-core about that game. If you ask me, i think some competitive player will play a game to the point it's no longer fun (i.e. only 2 units in the game are ever built because they were calculated to have the best cost-to-damage/armor ratio, etc.), but I think that's the fault of the game, not the gamer for the most part, and this is exactly what patches are here to fix. What bothers me is that so many 'pros' divide a gaming community into two categories: competitive players (those that crunch numbers and care about ladder ranking) and 'comp stompers'. Just in case there's any doubt, there exists a third category: those that play online, enjoy wining, but don't have a shot in hell of ever making it into the hallowed ranks of 'pros'. We play for fun (and it's always more fun to win), but our lives don't revolve around the game. It's nothing more than that: a game (like dodge ball, or checkers, for example). I know most people on these forms know that, and probably think i'm going on about nothing, but there are definitely people who just don't seem to grasp this demographic.

And who cares how hard-core a gamer is anyway? Balanced games are more fun regardless of skill level, and when there's only one race that can be played viably (not saying that's true: haven't played 1.03 enough for myself yet) it detracts from the funness.

Edit: ok, 2 or 3 opening moves doesn't necessarily make a game suck, but it isn't as good as it could be.

Well, I feel noobish; 4 MP games under my belt (3 wins), and about a dozen vs the AI, and till I read this thread, I had NO idea I could build more than 1 trade port (or super weapon) per planet. I use to only build one per planet (never asteroids), as I also thought the income was based on tax income. I wonder if a "1 per planet" change would help with all this?

I'm not surprised, I still see that at least once a day.

To respond to some valid criticism:

Yes true starcraft had many more factors to it success than simply well made game. DoW also had its share of problems (especially with expansions - thats why I didnt mention them). But it is also true that every popular RTS MP games has to have decent balance and support competetive play. Yes they are not perfect - but leaps and bounds beyound what soase currently is

This entire statement could not be more false. There have been plenty of solid games that left people happy on all fronts.

The funny thing is that the competitive MP crowd is the smallest population, but because they scream the loudest and are more active in general on the forums they tend to get the most attention. It is funny also about the fact that competitive gamers always credit themselves with the success or failure of a given IP. Competetive gamers actually drive up the cost of most IP because of their willingness to use exploits and the mind numbing spam that they resort to, so more patches have to be created, which means more cost.

Now personally, I have no problem with the whole "win at all cost" out look, what I have a problem with is the fact that because of the anonymitity of internet MP, the "cost" is negligible and so easy to justify for most folks caught in that phase of development.

I have been almost exclusively playing Vasari, and it definitely seemed as if I was slowed significantly during the first couple of trial games I tried on 1.03. Has anyone had better success and if so, how?

As advent I have to play defensive whole game and hope I lure them into false sense of security while I slowly tech up to Heavy Cruisers. Once I got 20 Heavy Cruisers and about 20 defense vessels, their fleet of cobalt+Flak+LRMs are toast. And luckily they been spamming whole game so they cant rebuild, and they have no way to counter it :/ (Carrier 75 crystal, and they haven't teched Kodiaks at all).

Seems I been going for HC with Advent A LOT lately, and it is a sin.

*shakes head* I am not trying to suggest that input from the competitive crowd isn't important, but Pardo said it best, that any change will always cause a huge uproar and so it is best to let things settle a bit before making further changes because he credits players with the ability to figure ways a round things. I also don't point fingers on how other people play, because life is about choices and I am certainly not going to setup myself up as an authority on what is best for each individual.

I will though try to make people think a little about the choices they make and the costs involved, and being human, gently poke some fun at folks who think they have all the answers

I am curious though about the nerfs because IC plays the game and they keep track of statistics, so I wonder if they saw/see something in the numbers that we don't/aren't. Was Vasari that much of a power house in MP?

You numb skulls don't realize if there are imbalances it doesn't affect just the elite. We just spot it first. It trickles down eventually.

Like I said... polarizing elements. People get into an "Us vs. Them" mentality and it taints their ability to make rational observations. Especially amusing is the need for such a self-proclaimed anticompetitve group to "win" an argument on the internet.