There was a time...

[shesycompany]

war2 fastest is fastest of them all, i agree sc1 is more ef

[Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)]

You should download this file and play at  15x fastest speed.  It would be better because it's faster! http://war2.warcraft.org/files/warextraspeed.exe

[xXxSmeagolxXx]

Lol yes I have played Starcraft back in the day I own it and brood war somewhere. Starcraft 1 on fastest speed is not as slow as EF... There are many RTS games where slowing the speed down would be unheard of.

[tk[as]]

even faster definitely takes more precision, skill, and understanding of the mechanics of the game.

there is a reason a good even faster player can compete on fastest maps in a very short amount of time.. the same cannot be said for a good fastest player trying to compete on even faster.

im sure there have been exceptions to this rule, but it is generally true. advanced even faster players understand this.

[tk[as]]

Fastest players: it takes time and effort to get good. there is definitely a skill to it.




Even faster players: it takes much more time and effort to get good. It's an art.

[Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)]

Lol yes I have played Starcraft back in the day I own it and brood war somewhere. Starcraft 1 on fastest speed is not as slow as EF... There are many RTS games where slowing the speed down would be unheard of.

Okay, then why don't they speed them all up?  Why aren't they faster than they are?  Why is there a speed they settle on if it's the faster is better?  there obviously has to be a point where they say, okay, that's fast enough, anything faster will hurt the game.

You're also being dishonest if you're going to claim Starcraft or any game runs anywhere near War2's fastest speed.  Blizzard never expected people to actually play at that speed.  Ladder games were locked in not at EF but actually one notch below, Faster.  i don't even care if people prefer fastest, it's not that bad, but you came into this thread to attack EF for some reason, and your points are all wrong and your argument is bad

[{Lance}]

The Blizzard RTS games were designed for precision, game mechanics, and detail.  You get none of that at blazing speeds,  this is why ALL of the games ladders are locked at a certain speed.  Example, War2 was locked at the Faster speed (one below EF).  The original version of War2 did NOT have the "fastest" setting.  It was not added until the Battle.net edition and it was meant to be for fun,  not for competitive play.  Competitive play requires time to think.  Heres another example.  How many chess tournies are run at 3 second rounds?  None that are designed to be competitive.  In order to have any kind of competition, you need to add time to the equation.  Anything else is just "for fun".  Sure you can play chess with a 3 second clock,  but really, how competitive is it going to be?  Not very thats for sure.

If you push War2 at blazing speeds (like fastest),  you more or less turn it into a fast action video game rather than a strategic RTS (Hence the name Real Time Strategy).  You can argue that F has "strategy" but you'd be missing the point because it's not the same animal.  It has far different "strategies" that focus more on Macro style play and praying that you're looking at the right place when something happens.  One thing that F has over EF is the element of surprise.  You can show up unexpectedly and destroy something that you would not have otherwise been able to accomplish on a slower speed.  Why did it happen?  Certainly not because you are any good, but simply because you got lucky and the other guy wasnt watching that part of the screen and didnt have "time" (theres that pesky time word again) to react to your move.  There is also a VERY noticeable DECLINE in unit control on fastest.  That is probably the biggest problem with the fastest speed besides the speed itself.

IMO the fastest speed excels at giving people the illusion that they actually know what they are doing when in actuality, they are clueless.

[xXxSmeagolxXx]

I didn't come here to "attack ef", just like your debate on PBall if it was Warcraft 2 or not, I thought that was equally ridiculous. Just like that, this isn't an attack on ef but something as I stated is my opinion, I wanted discussion about it. I am not alone in believing slowing RTS games down alters the game play but not because of skill, do a google search of game forums many people hold the same view. Also you are talking about speeding Warcraft 2 or games up with MODS beyond what is normal for the game. Playing on fastest which is included in the game is a totally different thing than modding something to speed it way up. Also to answer your question Blid why don't people speed games way up for skill and challenge? There are people who mod different games to make them hyper fast, then play and beat them as a challenge. Lance to say Blizzard included fastest in Bnet edition but never meant it for competitive play is kind of silly. It wasn't meant for ladder play but it was included in multiplayer and there is no where I know of where Blizzard said do not play multiplayer Fastest games competitively(as people did and still do anyway). Unit control not taking into account building is definitely harder on fastest and would take more skill. Look at early RTS games like Total Annihilation, Lords Of The Realm 2, Age Of Empires those games were played on fastest by most players. Also many people don't want to extend a game that might take a long time on fastest anyway. You can build the same buildings and create the same units on fastest you just have to be quicker reacting... I'm not bashing EF and I don't care what people play F or EF but to me more time for both players to plan just means you are given more of a chance and makes it easier to control units. It seems more a personal preference to play on EF rather than a thing that measures your skill in my opinion. It is for sure though that there other RTS games where players do not slow down the games.

[Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)]

Lance to say Blizzard included fastest in Bnet edition but never meant it for competitive play is kind of silly. It wasn't meant for ladder play but it was included in multiplayer and there is no where I know of where Blizzard said do not play multiplayer Fastest games competitively(as people did and still do anyway).

They have confirmed they put it in as a joke, lol.

[xXxSmeagolxXx]

Here is an old comparison from the battle.net days by a player who prefers ef, and talks about each speed(ef and f) and how they have separate player bases that don't agree with each other. I like his points, even though he admits he is an ef player and leans toward ef he still admits they are both different games with neither truly being better but preference. "I think what keeps the 2 communities apart is simple stubbornness. They each believe that the other game setting is an inferior style of play. I personally don't think that. I just believe they lead to 2 different styles of playing. Unfortunately people usually stick with what they grew up with, which is why the even faster crowd is much more guilty of this than the fastest crowd. " To me it's preference as well and I am no BNE pro but in most games setting the speed to the highest makes it harder. http://war2.warcraft.org/rants/fastest.shtml

[xXxSmeagolxXx]

Also Blid how do I get WarExtraSpeed to work? I've heard about this program in the past. I don't want to try it out because I think 15x the speed would make a better game, I just want to try it and see how crazy it will be lmao. I downloaded it but when I try to click activate on either button while playing single player or on Server RU it says "error writing to warcraft memory".(Also I have the original War 2 BNE CD but the CD is old and shitty and probably won't install, I am using War2Combat.) Any idea how to get it to work or why it's doing that?

[Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)]

haven't used it in like 10+ years, all I can give you is the description from the site

War2 Extra Speed! - (20 kb)
Author: DjinnKahn
Alright you fastest players, it's time to learn why fastest actually does take less skill than slower speeds. This cool program let's change the speed of the game, up to 17x faster than the fastest speed setting. You do this by running War2, and then alt tabbing out, and running this program. You have to have the game speed set on either even slower, or slowest, depending on which option you pick. Then the game will play at the default of 13 times as fast, or the number you type in yourself. This program must be running by everyone in the game, in order for it to work. And your game MUST be hosted on even slower or slowest, depending on which option you are going to try. If you want to test it out, you can use this in single player too. Good luck beating 1 computer now you skill-less freaks . Muhahahaha.

[xXxSmeagolxXx]

Yeah I don't think that program is compatible with War2Combat. Probably only works / worked with Warcraft BNE edition. Check out that old link I sent where an old player is talking about EF and F. A lot of that is how I look at it that much of EF or F is preference. I am not all knowing though and I admit you have more time to plan strategies in EF so most games are going to end up being better games. In my opinion though it's more preference but to me slowing almost any game down if anything would decrease the skill level other than more planning time. I am not a BNE player anymore and was never a very good BNE player even when I did though(12+ years ago), it's an interesting discussion though.

[Certified MENSA Genius Brain (smart)]

Like I said previously, the faster you make the game, the more it shifts your priorities from micro to macro tasks.  Like, if I'm going to dick around with a grunt running in and tapping individual choppers once each to fuck up someone's wood, I can do that on EF without missing too much in my own base.  On fastest, though, while I'm spending 15 seconds doing that, twice as much "time" has passed.  I'd be better off focusing on expanding, upgrading, etc.  This is super obvious with dragons - people actually use them on fastest, where as on EF they're too easy to pick off with death coil and a lusted dk or whatever, which makes them a waste of money.  Also people use CTs more on fastest because opponents can't micro around the cannonballs as easily and because the cost isn't as high as resources come in more quickly.  Oh, and the big reason being that if someone attacks your base on fastest, they can break through the wall more quickly and you have less time to respond with repairing etc. so the CT being an auto-attack helps a lot.

[{Lance}]

Unit control not taking into account building is definitely harder on fastest and would take more skill.

Actually this is where many people get it all wrong.  You wouldnt notice the actual "difference" unless you spent significant amounts of time playing on slower speeds where the reaction time between click and actual performing of the action is noticable.  In War2 the "Fastest" speed actually REDUCES the response time between these two items.  You can make it much more noticable if you increase the "Latency" of the game to extra high.  In otherwords, units respond more SLOWLY the faster the game speed gets (this is why Blizzard chose Faster speed for competition, because thats about the point where the latency is near local response times).  The same thing will happen to any online game because network latency is only so fast.  It will never be as fast as playing the game locally.  The only place where this problem cannot be observed is when you are playing in single player mode.  There is no latency difference between the speed settings at that point.  But once you get online,  latency becomes a problem the faster the game speed goes.  This problem exists for ALL games.  Not just war2.

Skill has nothing to do with anything when there are physical barriers stopping you from performing an action when it should be performed.  So there you have it,  the actual technical reason supporting why blizzard opts to use slower speeds for competitive play.  It's not a "preference",  there is a real technical reasoning for doing it