Essay about people who complain about "cheap moves" in games

[Quercus]

[QUOTE=Cyberhwk]
I got back at my younger cousin for pulling a similar stunt not to long ago.

We were playing a basketball game. Naturally, even though I had never played the game before, chose some incredible team, so I choose to humor him. About half way through the game I’m down 60-36 and I realize some thing’s fishy. He’s shooting about 70% from three point land. Strangely though, he can’t hit a damn free throw.

So for the entire second half, I do nothing but intentionally foul him every time he touches the ball. He can’t hit shit from the foul line (seriously it might have been a bug or something, it was fricking impossible) and I come back to win by 3 points…with all but 6 guys on my team fouled out. /QUOTE]What’s interesting is that a few years ago real NBA teams began using this strategy (in a more limited way, usually only at the end of games, and only when a few particular players were on the court). The developer (league office) had to release a patch (rules change) to eliminate (or at least reduce) the well-known “hack a Shaq” bug.

[control-z]

My friend and I used to always tell each other, “Anything I can do with this controller is fair game.” I often pondered whether hitting him over the head with the controller was included in that.

[Amblydoper]

@shijinn

i disagree. the single player campaigns are great, but the single player skirmish games are certainly boring with no need for strategy at all. (mass cruisers anyone?) when you skirmish against the computer there is absolutely no need for strategy or an expectation of any kind of surprise attack. the AI just can’t compare to a live opponent. not fun imo.

part of the game is certainly about learning the myriad build orders and micromanagement, it is a real-time game after all, but there is certainly no single, always-winning strategy. when i last played it every single strategy has a counter.

you didn’t say multiplayer is ‘cheap’ so this is not directed at you, but this is a good example where a player might incorrectly label something as a ‘cheap move’ because the game is not played with a variant they prefer.

I may have unfairly mushed together build orders, micromanaging, and late game tactics into the phrase “Monotonous button pushing,” but my point remains the same. I agree that there is incredible skill involved in executing the build orders, scouting the map, committing to a particular strategy, and then micromanaging the fuck out of your units. Obtaining that skill is not fun for me. Occasionally, I will reinstall Starcraft or Warcraft 3, play through the campaigns, then try multiplayer for a while, but when I hit the steep slope that exists between the casual players like myself and the hard core micromanagers, I stop. I have respect for the 'crafters that can play like that, but that’s not my cup of tea. Its like the difference between the neighborhood football game and the college/professional level.

It has been a while since playing Starcraft online, but I know I saw tactics that consistently kicked my ass. I never thought they were “cheap.” I thought about ways to counter them, and even tried them myself. Usually, I failed, and I resigned to the fact that I wasn’t very good. The game overall is still fun, though, and that is the most important thing in my opinion. For some people, winning is the fun part, and those are the people that research build orders and master micromanaging. This difference illustrates one of the best things about most of Blizzard’s games: they appeal to the casual gamers and the hardcore enthusiasts at the same time.