StarCraft: A Brief History

By: EatMeReturns

The year was 1997. Fans were clamoring for the release of Blizzard's newest Real-Time Strategy game: Starcraft. Some had even gone so far as to band together within the Starcraft Suggestions Forum in an attempt to force the seemingly-completed game out of Blizzard Entertainment, after the latter pushed it's release past December. This group self-proclaimed "Operation CWAL" wrote fan-fiction about how Blizzard's management purposefully delayed the release of Starcraft in an attempt at world domination, and CWAL (Can't Wait Any Longer) was attempting to 'liberate' the CD. Finally, in 1998, the rebellion succeeded in their quest, and the to-be RTS titan hit the shelves. Admitting defeat, Blizzard gave a so-called "special thanks" to CWAL and used their title as a speed-construction cheat in-game.

Immediately, the fans knew they had won a major victory. The award-winning game was the world's best-seller in 1998 and continued on to take the third top selling game in the world, just short of The Sims and The Sims 2. Windows users were first to enjoy the Magic: The Gathering-based Terran, Zerg, and Protoss, quickly followed by ports for Macintosh and the Nintendo 64 console. However, there was a downside: Some bugs, glitches, and exploits had not been tested out, and many patches (15 including multiple sub-patches) were to follow the initial release, including 4 which significantly changed the game.

The most affected by this world-changing game were the South Koreans. Due to the large uprising of cyber-cafes in Seoul and Starcraft's leniency toward multiplayer gameplay, South Korea quickly rose to the occasion; avid gamers claiming Starcraft to be South Korea's national sport. Professional players began emerging from the nation, and adopted the name "Gosu" by the less-experienced. Usernames such as SlayerS_`BoxeR`, Iloveoov, and Nal_rA became the public face of Starcraft gods. Hundred-thousand-dollar contracts became commonplace for the pros, and soon Starcraft rose to the most popular game in all of South Korea.

Now, the year is 2008. Fans are clamoring for the release of Blizzard's newest Real-Time Strategy game, Starcraft II. Unofficially set for December, Starcraft II is rumored to be the greatest RTS titan that ever hit the shelves. Only time will tell whether or not the game will live up to it's predecessor, but most agree the game will be monumental.

Special thanks to the Starcraft-Wikia. For a full list of starcraft patch data, visit the starcraft wiki.