In Starcraft there are a couple of ways a player can express their positive attitude towards the game in general and their opponent.
Starting of the match with the message 'GL HF' (good luck, have fun) for example.
At about 10:00 into this game I saw death come a' knocking.
I'd tried really hard. I'd given my best, knowing that in ZvZ the balance of power rests on a knife's edge, and I'd lost.
Instead of watching my brand new expansion die, my poor drones get brutally massacred, and a general case of not-breathing spread throughout my camp I decided to call the game. I'd been bested. There wasn't a need for my opponent to spend the next five minutes removing every last building I'd built from the map when we both knew I couldn't possibly recover while his forces swept through my infrastructure like a chainsaw. So I opened my chat and typed 'gg'.
In Starcraft there is a prescribed way of calling the game. The defeated player types 'GG' (good game) or 'WP' (well played) in the chat to his opponent who often graciously responds with a similar message. That player then leaves the match ceding the victory to their opponent.
In this game I saw more than a dozen of the enemies units swarming of my ramp, and killing off my hastily assembled defenders. I knew that I didn't have enough troops to hold them off and that before I could build more he would destroy my almost defenseless workers and his advantage would become absolute. The only well mannered possibility in my mind was to concede instead of dragging the game out needlessly when he had already won.
So I had the chat open, I had typed 'Hell, GG', and I was resigned to my loss. Then I noticed something. His Banelings (small green suicide units) had just crashed into my newest base and its Queen (an economy focused guardian-type unit) causing almost no damage. His units weren't swarming through my workers or pillaging my base.
What had happened? I decided to check it out.
His units were gone. The Banelings had imploded rather harmlessly and his warriors had disappeared. I knew I'd started my second base far earlier than he had in the hopes of gaining an economic advantage in the long term.
Since I didn't seem to be dead I decided to fight on. A couple minutes later and I was victorious!
What happened? Three Banelings had been building right as his troops swept in. Two of them had fallen before turning into the deadly suicide troops which I'd intended to use against him. And the rest of his units had swarmed around the final Baneling which had through some miracle managed to survive. My opponent was most likely sloppy. At the lower levels of skill where I was playing controlling each unit carefully is often very difficult. He also might have simply thought that none of my units would survive to the point of being a threat, the were outnumbered by at least 5 to 1. However it came about, that one Baneling survived. For less than a second.
And that was perfect. Because the beauty of the Baneling is that when it dies it releases a burst of flesh eating acid in a small radius causing damage to everything nearby. My opponent's units were particularly susceptible to this acid. One baneling was enough to drop more than a dozen of his units instantly, leaving my base safe and sound.
Lucky me.
Only a split second from surrendering I'd just been saved by a stroke of luck. So I've uploaded a video with a little commentary that you can enjoy showing the fateful moment. . . enjoy.
You mean that there is a "prescribed" way of calling the game. "Proscribed" means forbidden, whereas "prescribed" means dictated by relevant norms.
ReplyDeleteIn any case. RIP(s) Baneling #754321689.
As always, your comments are in lightning. I'll have Dragon flogged immediately.
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