Monday, December 29, 2008

You Must Construct Additional Pylons

I'm pretty sure that there is a channel in Korea that shows Starcraft tournaments 24 hours a day. At any rate, that was what it was showing this morning and now, eight hours later.

Ok, the Ongamenet channel is probably video games all day, not just SC, though Koreans are (in)famously obsessed with that particular game.

Update: Actually, there are (at least) two such channels, both of which were showing Starcraft games last night.

4 comments:

Mark

I'm surprised they're still playing Starcraft so much. It came out 10 years ago - a few lifetimes for video games. Wonder what they'll do when Starcraft II comes out ... have a national holiday?

Are the players scarily good? What are the games like?

Landon

The games are very different than the ones I've ever played. They choose different places to micromanage and macromanage than I (or the people I've played) do. For example, the game is largely about effective use of drop ships (or equivalent), and they tend to mircromanage by saving the drop ships rather than by focusing on specific targets.

Judging by the fact that they have hundreds of fans watching the tournaments in person for SC1, I can't imagine what they will do when SC2 comes out.

The really weird part is the fans and commentators. Seriously, hundreds of people cheering on their favorite players, holding signs, wearing t-shirts supporting the player, etc. The commentators sound just like you would expect from sportscasters, and they too will get excited, and jump up and down as a major battle takes place.

The station does cover other games, but at least during the few hours that I am awake and in the hotel, they have more SC than anything. I expect that it's like football to them: you don't stop playing the game just because there are newer fancier games out.

Unknown

Wow. There are a few people I know at Reed who would love this.

Congrats on making it safe and sound to Korea, it's good to hear that you're enjoying it so far. Happy New Year and such!

Landon

I've now grown bored with Starcraft on TV, but before that happened I noticed that the Korean players in the tournaments weren't very good. They were all about 15-17, which is probably part of it( A fellow teacher was in an internet cafe and saw a guy in his seventies beat seven kids at once, which strikes me as nearly impossible even against bad players).They are all technically brilliant, using units far more effectively than I ever could, so they would probably still beat me, but their strategies were lousy. I developed some pretty good strategies watching them though. The few good strategies they did use were clearly standard knowledge since they all used them. Again, their age is probably a factor.

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