The following is just a fiction of my idea. Developing since
July 2005.
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Episode 1
Blizzard has released MR^2 Starcraft as its new award-winning title
in year 2008. MR^2 means MMO-RTS-RPG (massive multiplayer online -
real time strategy - role playing game). This is a new game from
Blizzard that took 3 years to complete after the World of
Warcraft.
This new title emphasize a true battlefield experience that
everyone is playing an unit in the game, as this is the new
direction in the MR^2 trend.
The MR^2 Starcraft starts with the original 3 races but it will
open more unknown races along the way, according to Blizzard. The
revolutionary element in the new game is everyone is possible to
become a hero when it gains more experience and respect in the
game.
The game starts off with no central governments. Everyone is free
to form its own government to compete in this resource-short
planet. It totally follows the Darwinian idea of evolution -
selection of nature - survivor the fittest.
I joined the game in the first round. Starting as a civilian. Soon,
I participated in a marine recruit campaign to build a force called
The Union. The group was pathetic. There were only 18 soldiers with
a few machine guns in the Union. The way we built up a nation was a
legend. The deciding war in which we defeated an outnumbered Zerg
force and gained control to our economic resource was still a hot
topic among others. From there on, we rely on our resource to build
up our whole chain of economy and military. We enjoyed a couple of
game years time of peace which we can concentrate on our nation
building, as other forces were busy building theirs too.
However, peace doesn't last long. Our neighbor force The Fallens
started to eye on our resource rich territory. They plotted a large
scale war on us. The worst thing is we were hidden from the evil
fact and caught off guard!
When our territory border scout reported the invasion of The
Fallens, it was too late to recall our scouting Battle Cruisers
Fleet. We were on our own to handle The Fallens.
I was the 4th ranking general in The Union. I was having lunch
during the time. MR^2 Starcraft AI software will take over routine
work while the players are not online. Suddenly, my admiral phoned
me to get prepared of it. I immediately got into the MR^2 Starcraft
realm to organize our defending force.
Things aren't optmistic. We have only a group of Marine infantry of
46. Most of them are novice players and haven't had any real battle
experience. The old birds have been promoted to pilot the Battle
Cruissers already, anyway. A fleet of 5 deadly Siege Tanks are in
place, this let me feel slightly easy.
I recalled 2 Battle Cruissers for help. These two newly-built ships
are under my control. However, Sam, the second ranking general
doesn't want to put in 100% reinforcement for us. He just wanted to
protect his own territory. I made a complaint to the highest
ranking admiral, Rob. He said he would think of a way...
Episode 2
------------
Rob contacted Sam and lectured on him the importance of keeping my
territory safety intact. After these 3 gaming years (1 gaming year
is equivalent to 1 calendar week) of development, The Union has
morphed into a nation of 3 cities. Rob, as the highest ranking
admiral, controls of the biggest and the earliest city. Rob's city
has the most complete facilities and infrastructure. We are not
particular worried about Rob's city as its defence will be able to
take The Fallens' attack in a rather long period. That would be
enough to wait until our Battle Cruisser fleet's return to turn the
tide.
The Fallens' target is obviously on my city or Sam's city. Our
cities are relatively newer and lack of decent defence systems. On
the other hand, our new cities are giving our nation more vibrant
economic advantages with more resources and income.
Sam and I were not on good term since day one. We were fighting
very hard to climb to this level. We were always opponents, though
we were in the same nation. We were supposed to float together,
sink together.
Looking at the map, I was pretty certain that The Fallens' army
would defnitely head towards my city, instead of Sam's. I believed
that Sam's unwillingness to send out his elite Battle Cruisser
fleet has his own interest calculation.
On the surface, Sam agreed to dispatch his fleet once The Fallens
reached 100km from my city's outskirt with an obvious attack target
intend. But who knows he would really do that? I asked
myself.
Under the new MR^2 Starcraft system, a leader is chosen using a
democracy method. One person one vote at least, person with battle
credit will have more votes accordingly. Rob was the undisputed
highest leader because of his charism and incredible battle credit.
Remember the very first war to gain control to the economic
resource? It was his strategy that lead our smaller army to
victory.
Therefore, it is extremely important that a leader to continue to
grow his city, economy, military and influence. With a bigger city
and economy, you can support more guys. Those guys will in return
vote you to become the leader (under the normal situation), which
will gain you more power.
My 2 battle cruissers are on their way back home. 46 marines and 5
tanks were all I have. I gave my men a speech before they headed to
their positions in the field. 'Defend our city, no matter what it
costs', these are the words I share with my men.
The sky was so cloudy and dark. It signified a big battle was
approaching. I looked at the skyline, far far away, knowing that
our enemy was coming closer. I grew a bit nervous. It wasn't easy
to reach my current status. Though I could restart the game if I
were defeated in this coming war. I would need to restart
everything. I wasn't sure I would be able to make a full comeback
for next time.
I decided to lead a small squad of vulture riders to make some
initial contact with the army. Hoping they will be delayed and
become hessitant for a full attack. Then, I left with another 3
vulture riders towards the enemy.
The Fallens was, in fact, an alien race to human - the Zerg. It was
the parent to the zerg force which The Union destroyed in the First
War. The Fallens had sent out a few small scale disturbing forces
after the First War, but it didn't cause much trouble to us.
However, this time wasn't the same anymore.
My intelligence officers told me that they saw hundreds of
Zerglings running their way towards here. It was an amazing number
they never saw before. We all knew that how cruel a Zergling can
be. Not even the bravest warrior in The Union would want to face it
without a proper machine gun.
4 vultures went in the direction of The Fallens. A first blood
would be drawn soon...
Episode 3
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I summoned the best elite warriors of my team to go together with
me. They have been with The Union since the early days. I knew them
very well, especially their battling technique, experience and
strategy.
In MR^2 Starcraft, a Terran player usually joins as a marine with
basic firearms. As he promotes throughout the game, he will be able
to access and control more sophiscated weaponry. For example,
Battle Crussier which is one of the deadliest weapons in Terran's
arsenal.
The other interesting and new aspect is, the Terran player is given
the authority to command more men when he climbs to higher career
ladder. Each government may choose the best organization structure
they feel most comfortable. For example, The Union is practising a
well-defined smaller team structure - Every 10 marines/units form a
squad, directly commanded by a squad leader. Next, every 10 squad
leaders form the next level team, commanded by another higher
ranking commander. This structure continues until Rob's
level.
I, being a newly-promoted 4th ranking commander, was commanding an
army of 46 marines, 5 tanks, 2 Battle Crussiers and the newest
territory establishment in The Union. My force was rather weak due
to our new territory status. However, we were building up. We were
training more men and were building more advanced weapons at the
moment.
The sudden invasion of The Fallens had destroyed my initial
planning. I had to counter them with a much weaker force that I had
at the time. Too bad. I wished if they came at a much later
time...
The Fallens was still far away from my territory border, about
200km away. The Vulture automobile we were riding was a
revolutionary design by Terran scientists. Its highest speed is
350kmph. I liked to ride on it to race around. The feeling was like
playing a car racing game in Starcraft. We would reach the first
The Fallens' striker in 30 minutes time.
My cell phone suddenly rang up. I paused the game for a while to
pick up the call. It was Blizzard's far east game master. He told
me that Blizzard was interested to broadcast the upcoming war
between The Union and The Fallens. Oh my god! This was a great
opportunity! Every player, who plays MR^2 Starcraft, hopes to run
into this offer from Blizzard. It basically means that you will
earn a huge amount of prize money from that!
Let me do the math for you. Blizzard will sell the broadcast right
to any interested media company. Given Blizzard's popularity, it is
almost equivalent to broadcasting Olympic Games. A lots of MR^2
Starcraft fans will tune in to watch the selected shows.
Advertisement will surely follow.
Now, Blizzard will take 60% of the earning from broadcasting right
and distribute the remaining to the involving governments. The
victor of the war will get 35% and the loser will still get 5%. Not
a bad deal, huh? This was what I thought.
I called Rob to discuss about the details. He agreed to it. Then we
were on. The Fallens would definitely agree to it as they would
think they would be the winner of the war (else they won't pick up
this war). The only problem with this broadcasting was it would
draw much attention from the community. People would be able to
scrutinize your status from the broadcasting. Although according to
the rule, there will be a 1 gaming year (1 calendar week) of
war-free zone declaration for the involving governments and
territories, it is still quite risky to draw much attention,
especially when you were still not that strong.
The broadcast would be on the air at 8:00pm that day. I looked at
my watch, there were another 2 hours to go. Let me had a quick
dinner first. I told my 4 vulture guys to rest for a while.
*****
200km from The Union's 4th ranking commander, Law's (that was my
nick in the game) territory.
A mass group of Zergling was holding to the ground, waiting for a
Zergling Lord's direction. The Zergling Lord commanded a striking
force of 80 over zerglings in this invasion.
The Zergling Lord was actually deciphering a secret order from its
highest admiral. The secret order contained a very evil conspiracy
plot.
Episode 4
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The Zergling Lord couldnt believe in the order it just received.
However, it had to execute it. In a well-structured military
organization demonstrated in MR^2 (MMO-RTS-RPG, a new term coined
for this kind of new gaming concept) Starcraft, one of the obvious
ways to get promoted is to follow higher-level generals order and
execute it excellently. Otherwise, you can easily be replaced by
any other person who is more willing to follow the instruction,
anytime. This appointment power is one of the tools that enables
higher-level general to rule effectively.
People who do not like work under organization or nation can choose
to become a wandering ranger, move around in the realm of MR^2
Starcraft alone. In fact, more people choose to join a nation and
hope in one day will climb to the power submit. Anyway, it is much
more influential a nation leader can be than a lone high-skilled
ranger.
The zergling horde was getting impatient to just hold to the ground
doing nothing. The unrest began to spread in the horde. They wanted
to taste some blood, rather than just waiting at this place. The
Zergling Lord directed its army to advance. The zerglings couldnt
wait any longer and rushed at the highest speed. They were so many
and you could see dust covered every corner of the place when they
passed-by.
What the zergling horde didnt realize was we were already
following them, from a safe distance, monitoring their movement. I
really didnt want to get any closer. It was so frightening to see
such a huge amount of zerglings moving in a group. They had the
strength to level everything blocking their way.
My memory reminded me the time when I was still a private, scouting
The Unions territory border in a small squad of 8 marines, many
years ago. It was just a very ordinary routine checkup, but the
ending wasnt ordinary at all. I was still troubled by the same
nightmare until now zerglings seemed to be everywhere, coming out
from every tree. We totally lost control on the situation. Our
small squad of 8 simply fired at will. It didnt work at all. Most
of our bullets just hit the air. We felt so hopeless and helpless.
We realized that we were surrounded by an outnumbered zergling
force. Those brute zerglings began to rip us apart, one by one. The
scene reminded me of the Doom3 scenario, the spooky Mars base came
to life, monsters came out from dark corner and caught you in
surprise
I was the only survivor of the ambush. I was the one because they
chose me to be the one they wanted to leave a survivor to go back
and tell the story. Those zerglings stood in a line in front of me,
teasing my inability to fight them. Then I realized that there were
only 5 zerglings in total - 8 marines couldnt handle 5 zerglings.
I couldnt sleep well in that night. I woke up many times from the
same nightmare. It was simply a huge blow to me. I vowed to repay
them in double. This was the golden opportunity to show them our
muscle.
4 vulture bikes scattered in 4 far corners. We were waiting the
zergling horde to enter into the heart of our mine field. Our high
tech binoculars enable us to monitor the zerglings from a great
distance. The zergling horde didnt realize that they were getting
closer to hell. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,
We activated the mines. The
zerglings immediately sense something wasnt good but it was too
late. They tried to escape and totally lost their formation.
Boom
a great explosion happened. 4 spider mines killed off 12
zerglings, not a bad deal! The Zergling Lord was indeed a superior
leader. It quickly reassembled its force, putting them back to a
good formation shape and came after us. We tried to return fire,
however the minimum firearm we have on the vulture bike wasnt
sufficient to hurt this huge group of zerglings. We were forced to
retreat after suffering serious damage from the brute zerglings
claws.
We headed back to the main base at full speed. The zerglings were
following but they couldnt get us given our high speed bike. The
broadcast had silently been on air in the middle of the battle. It
drew attention of 50,000 audiences in the first 20 minute
broadcast. According to initial estimate, it would bring 186,000
dollars to the ultimate winner.
As the Fallens force has gone beyond 100km safety line, I called
Sam for reinforcement. Damn! Sam didnt pick up his cell
phone.
70 zerglings are going to have a direct face-to-face skirmish with
my smaller army soon. Reinforcement has yet been confirmed. I was
so worried
(to be continued
)