Rush (computer gaming)
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In real-time strategy (RTS) and team-based first-person shooter (FPS) computer games, a rush is a fast attack at the beginning of the game. It emphasizes speed in an attempt to overwhelm an unprepared opponent. In fighting games, this style of play is called rushdown. This also has a different meaning in RPG computer games where characters skip the usual progress path with the aid of others to reap benefits that are usually denied to them until a later time.
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Real-time strategy (RTS)
In RTS games, to perform a rush, the attacking player focuses on building a large number of fast, cheap units adept at attacking. The player who rushes may sacrifice such options as greater long-term resource gathering or immediate research up the tech tree to opt instead for a quick strike.
A successful rush usually attempts to disrupt the resource gathering of the defending player. The rush is a risky tactic. If the rush is successful, then the player may have won the game or significantly set his or her opponent back; if the rush fails, then the rushing player may have wasted valuable time and resources that would have been better spent on research or building types of units not as well adapted toward the rush. A rush can also be considered a mass attack with primarily only one type of unit used, and depends on overwhelming numbers and force to succeed. The rush is often a suicidal (for the units involved) attack; rushing units are often expected to die, but to nevertheless benefit the player initiating the rush by disrupting the opponent's operations.
The term "rush" is often preceded by a word describing the type of unit used in the rush. For example, in the game StarCraft, a Terran player may use a Marine rush, a Protoss player may use a Zealot rush, and a Zerg player may use the infamous Zergling rush. The units used are almost always cheap, easy to produce, and weak compared to other units.
Origins
The first common appearances of the term rush in this sense come from Warcraft II (1995) and Command and Conquer: Red Alert (1996). Warcraft II players used the term grunt rush, the "grunts" being the Orc footmen. In Red Alert, so-called tank rushes were a dominant strategy for players using the Soviet forces.
The term was further popularized by the strategy of Zerg rush (typically with the zergling unit, so the term was also known as zergling rush or in a more abbreviated form as ling rush or gling rush), from StarCraft (1998). At the time StarCraft online play began, the Zerg could execute faster rushes than either the Terran or the Protoss; players considered the Zerg the race most likely to and best-adapted to rushing. Later balance changes implemented through patching and the release of an expansion pack improved the rushing abilities of the other races and de-emphasized Zerg rushing. As time went on, the term rush became applied to other races in StarCraft, and to other real-time strategy games as well.
Culture
When the first RTS-games were released in the early to mid 1990s, and rushes were first discovered, rushes were considered to be an unskilled tactic in many RTS gaming circles. However, the very design of RTS-games basically allow a rush of some type to exist in any game. Furthermore, a rush that failed was likely to result in the loss of the rushing player, so a rush involved taking an inherent risk. Consequently, soon the opposite became true: players who could rush well became respected. By the late 1990s, in most RTS-games, virtually all good players practiced the rush, which is still considered a standard and completely acceptable strategy. In early versions of Starcraft, players were able to quit the game within 5 minutes without having a loss filed in the official Battle.net statistics. This led to extremely early rushes where the rusher quit just before 5 minutes if the rush did not seem successful enough. The time limit was lowered in later versions.
In RTS-games that have been played for a long time, anti-rush strategies are usually developed, causing most rushes to become more of an attempt at early pressure rather than a direct attempt to win the game, though the latter still sometimes occurs.
In StarCraft, the rush is often accompanied by chat that includes East Asian-style Internet lingo such as "kekeke" and East Asian-style emoticons such as "^__^"; this is indicative of StarCraft's popularity in South Korea.
In the Age of Empires series, sometimes, certain rules are applied in which the players are forbidden to rush before reaching a certain age period. Such rules are simply a mutual understanding between players. In the latest RTS-games, the developer made rushing an almost futile strategy. This was done by strengthening the settlement by further fortifying it with missiles and in some other cases, with towers. Another change was to make the villagers stronger; attacking the villagers with weak units was no longer a profitable business.
In such games, a rush can still be applied, but mostly to weaken your opponent's expansion plans.
Another way to avoid rush is to enforce a non-rush rule for a particular period of time. It could be anything from 10-minutes, to 1-hour; in TB-games, the rush restriction could last for hours. Players that want to avoid rush do it to make sure that all players have a fair chance to execute their own strategy, and, in turn enjoy a longer game.
First-person shooter (FPS)
Rushing in team-based first-person shooters has the same meaning as in real-time strategy games, and the term probably originates from RTS games. The opposite of rushing in this sense is camping. In FPS games, rushing is often considered to be an honorable tactic, in contrast to camping which is often looked down upon as a dishonorable tactic.
A team will rush towards an objective or certain area of the map hoping to overwhelm the players there before backup can arrive. In a round-based game like Counter-Strike, players rush typically in an all-or-nothing attempt at the beginning of the round. In most other first-person shooters players spawn continuously, so they might wait and plan for a group of players to form a rush. For example in Unreal Tournament 2004's "Onslaught" mode (territorial control), players might prepare an organized rush to capture the last control point and win the game.
Fighting game
In the world of fighting games, especially those of the 2-D variety, rushdown is a play style utilizing aggressive, unrelenting attacks designed to cause mental intimidation in the other player (due to the visually impressive string of attacks), and force them, due to the increased game pace, to make defensive errors, leading to punishable mistakes. Characters who excel in this style are referred to as "rushdown characters". A rushdown game is inherently a game of calculated risks. This style is apparently the signature style of West Coast players.
Notable rushdown characters: Ken Masters, Ryu, Magneto, M. Bison, Balrog, Vega
Multiplayer RPG Games
Rushing can also mean an attempt to cirumvent the established path of progress. In multiplayer RPG games, like Diablo II, low level characters can allow high level characters to complete tasks in such a way that the low level character is awarded the progress. This type of action usually is followed by the low level characters leeching off other characters and gaining rewards they ordinarily would not have access to. This enables rapid progession with characters gain rewards much faster than ordinarily possible. Diablo II, in particular, was patched by its makers to attempt to inhibit this action. Player have since found way around the new measures introduced. Rushing, in the 1.10 patch of Diablo II, has passed into a form of currency since rushing became more complicated.