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▲ boringg a day ago

The apex of RTS games -- what a great gaming era RIP. Since then graphics are way better but business models have just deteriorated and mass appeal has driven games.

▲itsdrewmiller a day ago | parent | next [-]

I think Brood War is the true apex - more than two races with significant differences and aggressive balancing. Warcraft II was what I LAN played the most so it has a special place in my heart though.

▲iammjm 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Brood War IS the absolute apex. This is the game that started e-sports. It is what defined the modern RTS games. It is also the most difficult game. Flash, the best Brood War player, is arguably the best e-sports player of all time.

▲PeterHolzwarth 21 hours ago | parent [-]

Oh goodness, Brood War most certainly is not the game that started e-sports, tho I of course appreciate your enthusiasm for the game.

▲embedding-shape 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Technically I guess Spacewar! was the one who started e-sports, was the first game people competed in. Personally, growing up in Sweden, I think FPS (namely CS1.5/1.6) was the first game that enabled people to play games professionally on a international level, so I'll always associate CS with starting that, but again, technically I guess Quake was the first FPS people competed in professionally, at least in the US.

▲ericmcer 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Of course it wasnt the first time someone watched people playing video games against eachother.

The Korean Brood war scene was an entirely different level from anything that came before it though. The idea of announcers and gamers getting rich & famous from playing a video game live was unheard of before that.

▲kqr 3 hours ago | parent [-]

I agree. I think people underestimate the size of the Korean Brood War scene, even relatively early on. In my country, I had seen some huge LAN parties with associated competitions, but then I got introduced to Korean Brood War competitions; they were filling stadiums with audiences and had pyrotechnics and professional TV productions and everything. It was insane.

▲thinkingtoilet 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It started modern esports. There were gaming competitions in the 80s, but there weren't team houses, coaches, analysts, big money sponsors, regular huge events, dedicated TV channels, players in prime time commercials and dating actresses and pop stars, etc... Brood War hit in Korea like nothing before or after it. There were literally three full time, 24/7 TV channels showing Starcraft content at it's peak. No other game has ever done that.

▲jquery 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Flash was an absolute legend.

I do wonder if Brood War's long period without balance patches helped or hurt it as an esport. In modern games, it feels like developers "shake up the meta" on purpose, whereas in brood war, it was up to map designers to ensure balance. This made it easier for long time fans to appreciate tactics... in SC2, I have to be caught up on the latest balance patches to appreciate anything.

▲TheAceOfHearts 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Brood War's longevity is thanks to the map maker, which has allowed the game to be balanced around maps. The size of your spawn location, the ease with which you can expand, and the paths to different bases drastically impact what kinds of strategies are viable. If there's a high ground location, it becomes much harder to break that position as the attacker. The amount of resources per base (mineral patch count, mineral patch size, 1 gas spawn, 2 gas spawn, mineral only) all impact which strategies are viable.

In fact, during the era of Flash's dominance in ASL, the organizers actually started including maps that were heavily Zerg favored in order to put a stop to his reign.

The game is still alive and well, with a meta that continues to evolve, and every season of ASL[0] (the premier Brood War tournament), they include at least one new crazy experimental map. Last season the crazy map was Roaring Currents [1], one of the more ambitious designs in recent memory which has a large number of island bases. Basically if a strategy becomes a bit too oppressive, the map designers can always step in to make it a bit more balanced.

[0] https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/ASL

[1] https://liquipedia.net/starcraft/Roaring_Currents

▲thinkingtoilet 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's a huge part of it's longevity. I still watch Brood War tournaments today and it's so cool to go back one, five, ten years and watch a classic game. Compare that to the other game I love, DOTA, it's hard to watch old games because everything is so different. BW really is lightning in a bottle.

PS: Flash is coming back very soon apparently.

▲TheAceOfHearts 6 hours ago | parent [-]

Brood War has aged like fine-wine. As I mentioned in a parallel comment, the key to Brood War's longevity comes from the map maker. Every detail is carefully considered so that none of the races can get away with a crazy advantage. It's really a special game, and every new season of ASL still feels magical.

I wish medical science would get so much better that Flash could fully heal his wrist injuries. He's spoken at length about how he loves to dedicate himself wholeheartedly to playing, and how he doesn't like to compete if he's not able to give it his all.

You probably already know about it, but in case you or any other reader is unaware there's this great YouTube channel @jinjinBW that translates Korean BW clips into English. It's a huge boon for western fans.

▲philistine 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> There were gaming competitions in the 80s

... and uh, inveterate cheating and lying accompanied it. Brood War brought professionalism to esport.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Mitchell_(gamer)#Dispute...

▲baq 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

the parallel world of FPS esports started with quake and was going strong for a good decade or so, before being ripped apart by mumorpegers, dotas, counterstrikes and, primarily, consoles (which I believe also ultimately killed starcraft and RTS in general, too).

▲wredcoll 14 hours ago | parent [-]

There is, I think, a reasonable distinction between the semi-annual "tournament with prize money" situation that existed in america with quake and friends, and the constant, episodic nature of the broodwar scene in korea. Players being salaried is a pretty major shift in how the culture works.

▲7bit 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

But it certainly was the game that made it popular across the world.

▲Lorin 3 hours ago | parent [-]

StarCraft 2 tournaments broadcasts being watched in public venues pushed esports into the zeitgeist.

▲antisthenes 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In the RTS niche, it is definitely the game that started e-sports that had any sort of weight and global audience.

I'm honestly not even sure which other RTS game would be close? Age of Empires 1? I don't think it ever had the same traction or hype until AOE 2.

▲ 21 hours ago | parent [-]
[deleted]
▲markus_zhang 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I loved the campaigns so much that I spent many dollars to play with the campaign editor in a net bar back then. I never figured out how to recreate the Corsair scene at the beginning of Protoss level 2. It was only after many years that I found out that it requires a script not in the official editor — some modders created a new editor that includes all those “unofficial” scripts.

▲vbezhenar 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

And it's still popular and actually playable today. Warcraft 2 is not really fun to play. Very clunky control, very outdated graphics, bad story telling. With Starcraft, my only real complain is terrible cinematics which just doesn't cut it today. Otherwise this game is as fun to play today, as it was 15 years ago.

▲LarsDu88 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The cinematics were the best part of Starcraft!

I still get a kick out of the fact that the units look completely different in the cinematics as they do in the game and even the instruction manual

▲kergonath 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I quite like the StarCraft remaster. It plays just like the old one (to me, at least; I am not a competitive player), and it looks much better.

▲hulitu 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Warcraft 2 is not really fun to play.

Compared with a lot of ptesent games is luxury: no updates, no bullshit introduction, just play.

▲bigstrat2003 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Personally I think Dawn of War is the apex. That game really fired on all cylinders. And then for whatever reason Relic completely abandoned the formula and made the next game something different entirely. Dawn of War 2 remains one of my greatest gaming disappointments to this day because of poorly it stood up to its predecessor.

▲chuckadams 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Dawn of War 3 made DoW 2 look like Game of the Decade by comparison. I hear they're making a DoW 4, and they're not even mentioning 3 when talking about the history.

▲chollida1 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Interesting, I think most RTS players would point to StarCraft 2 as the apex, and they'd probably be correct given how its still played so much today.

What makes Warcraft 2 the apex for you over StarCraft 2?

▲jandrese 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Funny how many people think Starcraft 2 isn't even better than Starcraft 1, especially when you add in Brood War.

▲forgetfulness 19 hours ago | parent [-]

The game's campaign being what it was made it so people never warmed up to it, the big hero-focused storylines and then mishandling of said characters (Kerrigan's abortive humanization and then rushed redemption, the Protoss being framed in entirely the wrong tone, the half baked epilogue) just made it so that the campaign didn't stick as Brod War's did, even if the gameplay was superior.

▲adinisom 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Buildings as walls and using spawn points to jump through terrain are fun mechanics in WC2.

▲DarknessFalls 19 hours ago | parent [-]

I remember creating a moat of farms around my town hall.

▲SpaceManNabs 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I consider WCIII TFT the apex but that is because i really like the hero mechanic and it spawned so many amazing custom games, including the moba genre. I know AoS was first but dota really made it.

▲mettamage 20 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Can't comment on this other than that I came in at WCIII RoC and played TFT. Before that, I played a lot of Command & Conquer. I loved those games, so for me WCIII is the apex. I didn't like StarCraft. But it's admittedly the apex for me without having ever played WCII. I've rarely seen it as well.

▲ 19 hours ago | parent [-]
[deleted]
▲ycombinete 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The smaller armies, heroes, economy management, and increased micro-control that came from these things really push w3 to the top of the pile for me as well.

▲pa7ch 14 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I feel like wc3 is undersung. To me it achieved the perfect balance of allowing potentially mechanically worse players to win with brilliant tactics or strategy. It put the emphasis on strategy in rts more then anything else.

As a kid I was shit at it and played customs maps and goofed with the editor. Now I've gone back to find grubby streaming and revealing the depths of the meta evolution, and counters.

I like that even when a strong meta develops people can potentially counter with strategies that aren't as well rounded for long term use but upset the current meta.

▲AngryData 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Footies was my favorite and I wish we got a new game out of that too.

▲pfdietz 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> and mass appeal has driven games

Oh no, large numbers of people were satisfied. The horror! Will no one think of the elitist minority???

▲t_mahmood 17 hours ago | parent [-]

Large number of people were "satisfied" playing Clash of Titans too ...

▲haunter 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yet two of the most played games out there in 2025 are RTSes, Dota and League. The genre just progressed forward.

WC3 was peak design with the mod support (maps) where Dota originates from and and it was also the bane of the company. They couldn't monetize it and IceFrog choose Valve instead of them. No wonder that later Blizz games has 0 community support.

▲vbezhenar 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Dota and League are not RTS games. They are Moba. These are completely different genres. Dota happened to utilise Warcraft engine and assets back in the days, but that doesn't make it RTS.

▲officeplant 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>WC3 was peak design with the mod support (maps) where DotA originates from

Which first came from Starcraft custom game support and the popularity of Aeon of Strife (AoS) leading to Defense of the Ancients (DotA) in WC3.

▲SpaceManNabs 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> IceFrog choose Valve instead of them

Icefrog went to blizzard first if i remember correctly. Blizzard kinda told him to make a restricted game, maybe within the sc2 engine, almost for free. Valve saw the value and invested more.