Wow, how video games have changed since 1998. I'm playing Starcraft again and what a blast from the past this game is! Terrible pathfinding, atrocious, super-low res graphics, and one annoying, looping midi soundtrack. I understand that the balance and intricacies of Starcraft are entirely unparalleled, but the game is just aged. Watching videos of the Starcraft 2 beta, they've just improved the game in every regard - automated mineral collection, setting rally points to troops, idle worker notifications. Just everything is brought up to current-gen.
 
But still, I gotta get pro, and getting pro involves playing hideously old games just because they still get played at tournaments. First up - completing a Protoss game without hearing the words "Construct additional pylons!" Wish me luck!

 Wow, how video games have changed since 1998. I'm playing Starcraft again and what a blast from the past this game is! Terrible pathfinding, atrocious, super-low res graphics, and one annoying, looping midi soundtrack. I understand that the balance and intricacies of Starcraft are entirely unparalleled, but the game is just aged. Watching videos of the Starcraft 2 beta, they've just improved the game in every regard - automated mineral collection, setting rally points to troops, idle worker notifications. Just everything is brought up to current-gen.
 
But still, I gotta get pro, and getting pro involves playing hideously old games just because they still get played at tournaments. First up - completing a Protoss game without hearing the words "Construct additional pylons!" Wish me luck!

Well, I've heard complaints from professional and amateur tournament players that the game is "dumbed down" by all these new features. Of course, these are people with 150+ APM. I can't imagine how much of an eejit elitist I'd be if I were THAT good at any video game, period, so I can't quite understand that argument.

Now that I've learned all about attack move orders and build orders and fixed the color pallet issue, the game feels a little less clunky. It's still slightly archaic, though.

" Well, I've heard complaints from professional and amateur tournament players that the game is "dumbed down" by all these new features. Of course, these are people with 150+ APM. I can't imagine how much of an eejit elitist I'd be if I were THAT good at any video game, period, so I can't quite understand that argument. "

150 apm is pretty slow to advanced SC players. I haven't played the beta yet but I love the shit out of some brood war. The path finding isn't that bad in SC, it's only bad for a couple units like goliaths and dragoons.

I love the graphical style of BW though. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by setting rally points to troops.

Kind of a noob question but does APM actually literally mean key presses/mouse clicks per minute? Because that would translate to 60/150 s per action or about 0.4 seconds to do each action which I find to be a bit unbelievable. 

" Kind of a noob question but does APM actually literally mean key presses/mouse clicks per minute? Because that would translate to 60/150 s per action or about 0.4 seconds to do each action which I find to be a bit unbelievable.  "

" @Geno said:

" Kind of a noob question but does APM actually literally mean key presses/mouse clicks per minute? Because that would translate to 60/150 s per action or about 0.4 seconds to do each action which I find to be a bit unbelievable.  "

It doesn't count mouse clicks unless the click results in you selecting something(building/unit/minerals) or finishing a command like attack moving, patrolling etc. 150 apm is actually really easily attainable for most people once you are comfortable with using hotkeys, just think about how fast you type. "

" @sixghost said:

" @Geno said:

" Kind of a noob question but does APM actually literally mean key presses/mouse clicks per minute? Because that would translate to 60/150 s per action or about 0.4 seconds to do each action which I find to be a bit unbelievable.  "

It doesn't count mouse clicks unless the click results in you selecting something(building/unit/minerals) or finishing a command like attack moving, patrolling etc. 150 apm is actually really easily attainable for most people once you are comfortable with using hotkeys, just think about how fast you type. "

Is there an APM ticker in Brood War, or do I have to time it myself? "

There's nothing built in to BW to catch APM. You can either install a program like chaoslauncher or ADVLoader which will display your APM in real time at the top of your monitor, or if that's too weird for you, programs like bwrepinfo work fine too. The difference with that one is you'll need to tab out and select the replay manually in the program, then it will tell you your APM and EAPM, which is just your APM minus spam, which are junk actions like if you are repeatedly mashing your hotkeys to artificially make your APM higher.

I'd recommend chaoslauncher though. It's universally loved among SC players because it's also got a feature that will let you play at LAN speeds rather than the awful 1998 B.net lag. ADV has been known to have problems with viruses, and bwrepinfo just gets kind of annoying to use repeatedly.

Chaos also has some other cool features you might like too. During replays you can open these sidebars that display alot more indepth infomation about the game, such as how many minerals/gas each player has mined per minute, and how many of each unit each player has.