NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Rush (computer and video games)

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. In this context, it is also known as swarming, goblin tactics or Zerging, referring to the Zerg rush tactic from StarCraft. It emphasizes speed in an attempt to overwhelm an unprepared opponent. It is analogous to the human wave attack in real-world ground warfare, in which overwhelming numbers of troops are sent at the enemy, disregarding tactics or casualties. In fighting games, this style of play is called rushdown. This also has a different meaning in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), 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. Real-time strategy (often abbreviated as RTS) is a genre of computer wargames which take place in real-time, where resource gathering, base building, technology development and high-level control over individual units (harvest, build, destroy) are key components[1], which distinguishes it from related strategy wargame genres, such as... Maze War, one of the two candidates for the first FPS. This article is about the video game genre. ... A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... StarCraft is a real-time strategy game by Blizzard Entertainment. ... This article is about the military tactic. ... Screenshot of The King of Fighters XI (2005, SNK Playmore). ... eve_online, a popular MMORPG Massive(ly) multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a genre of online role-playing video games (RPGs) in which a large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world. ...

Zerging in computer games carries the connotation of being disorganized, too easy, and/or unfair, and players who employ this tactic are often considered inferior or cheap. There are few defenses against the zerg rush, one of these few being camping. Proponents, especially in realtime strategy games, feel that the threat of a zerging keeps their opponents honest, forcing them to play defense from the beginning of the match. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Zergling rush (StarCraft)

A Zergling rush is the tactic of attacking an opponent with a great many inferior units. The name comes from the popular computer game StarCraft where Zerglings are small and inexpensive units which can be produced relatively quickly (at the beginning of the game they can be produced more than 6 times faster than the other races' equivalents, although they are much weaker and easier to counter). In StarCraft, this refers specifically to the strategy where a Zerg player creates a Spawning Pool very early in the game, sacrificing his economy for early creation of Zerglings. Using this tactic overwhelms superior units (if any exist at this point in the game) and the ensuing chaos can provoke the opponent into making foolhardy decisions. Because Zerglings are cheap and quick to replace, consecutive rushes may defeat an opponent. A common response and/or counter to a rush, Zergling or otherwise, is to turtle. A Zerg rush may target an enemy's command center exclusively, as destroying the main building of an enemy early in the game can cripple the opponent. StarCraft is a real-time strategy game by Blizzard Entertainment. ... This article or section contains a plot summary that is overly long or excessively detailed compared to the rest of the article. ... This article or section contains a plot summary that is overly long or excessively detailed compared to the rest of the article. ... In computer and video games the term turtle, named after the turtle animal, has different meanings depending on the genre but all share the same main characteristic of the tactic, a form of defense. ...

Zerging in MMORPGs

The word "Zerging" carries a negative or derogatory connotation. Many MMORPG encounters are specifically designed with "anti-Zerg" features, such as assigning mobs to possess wide area-of-effect attacks (or to possess similarly damaging/disabling abilities), or where a creature becomes more powerful if more players engage him. An image from World of Warcraft, one of the largest commercial MMORPGs as of 2004, based on active subscriptions. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Despite its specific origins, Zerging is used in many games, from Warhammer (regarding horde armies) to EverQuest (describing an attack in which large numbers of participants are simply thrown at the opponent). The game Guild Wars describes Zerging as a tactic which Necromancers use to use spawned minions to construct a vast battalion of undead, and maintaining them throughout the area, although patches have now limited the number of minions one can make. In MMORPGs, a guild or clan that recruits players en masse (to increase Zerging effectiveness) is often termed a Zerg guild. In Final Fantasy XI zerging is described as when a party or group forgoes normal defensive or supporting tactics, focusing instead on everyone doing damage as quickly as possible. It has been suggested that Armies of warhammer be merged into this article or section. ... EverQuest (EQ) is a 3D fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) that was released on March 16, 1999. ... Guild Wars is an episodic series of multiplayer online role-playing games created by ArenaNet, a Seattle game development studio and a subsidiary of the South Korean game publisher NCsoft. ... In computer and video gaming, a clan or guild is a group of players who regularly play together in a particular (or various different) multiplayer games. ...

Zerging can refer to a wide range of army sizes, ranging from a ten-player group in a dungeon designed for five players, to a hundred-player raid in a PvP environment. In general, any army that is perceived as "too big" for the challenge it is undertaking can be called a Zerg. Instance dungeon Zerging used to be a very common tactic in World of Warcraft, wherein ten players will clear out a high-level dungeon designed for five (such as "Blackrock Depths" or "Scholomance"), in hopes of getting better items faster. Blizzard has (in patch 1.10) made it impossible for such oversized groups to enter these instances. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... In MMORPGs, an instance dungeon is a special area, typically a dungeon, that generates a new copy, or instance, for each group that enters the area. ... World of Warcraft (commonly abbreviated as WoW) is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment and is the fourth game in the Warcraft series, excluding expansion packs and the cancelled Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans. ...

Instance dungeon Zerg tactics are encouraged by the fact that, in general, all the rewards (virtual goods and money) are at the end of a dungeon. Whereas a five-man group could be wiped out before it finishes the dungeon, a ten-man group can complete the dungeon and obtain the treasure very easily.

Zerging in player versus player combat also can be defined as where one team gathers together and attacks one single point, a common, but often highly uneffective strategy used in much of the instanced PvP in World of Warcraft, and other games. In MMORPGs, an instance dungeon is a special area, typically a dungeon, that generates a new copy, or instance, for each group that enters the area. ...

Despite its effectiveness, Zerging is generally considered unsporting, as it allows a large number of players with less skill to overcome a challenge that should require a much higher skill level. However, it remains a highly effective tactic, and is often the only way for lower level players to overcome a higher level challenge.

The term "Zerg" is also uniquely employed in the MMOFPS game PlanetSide to describe the general mass of players in combat on a map. Commanders must "herd" a vast number of largely disorganized players to a strategic target of opportunity. Without constant and compelling guidance and direction, the "PlanetSide Zerg" will break up into small, disorganized, disparate squads and individuals. Although originally a carry-over term from other games, the Zerg in PlanetSide carries a closer similarity to its roots, in that Zerglings without a controlling presence (i.e. a Zerg Cerebrate or the Zerg Overmind) will become disorganized and easy to defeat. Categories: Stub | Massively multiplayer online games ... PlanetSide is a Massively multiplayer online first-person shooter computer game published by Sony Online Entertainment and released on May 19, 2003. ... Zerg Cerebrates are fictional characters from the StarCraft series of video games and books. ... The Zerg Overmind, sometimes known simply as the Overmind, is a character in the StarCraft universe. ...

In Urban Dead, zerging refers to the practice of using multiple accounts to overwhelm an opponent through consecutive attacks and is against the rules. Whenever there have been high-stakes battles or drawn out sieges, such as the fall of Shearbank or the four sieges of Caiger Mall, there are often accusations of zerging made by both survivor and zombie players. Urban Dead is an HTML/text-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game created by Kevan Davis. ...

Real-time strategy (RTS)

In RTS games, to perform a rush, the attacking player focuses on quickly building a large number of units adept at attacking. In the majority of cases, these units are fast and cheap to enable larger numbers and opportunistic attack strategies, but they may sometimes be chosen to exploit a particular weakness of the enemy. The player who rushes may sacrifice such options as long-term resource gathering or immediate research up the tech tree to opt instead for a quick strike. In strategy computer games, of both the turn-based and real-time varieties, a tech tree, short for technology tree, is an abstract hierarchical visual representation of the possible paths of research a player can take. ...

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 attack (for the units involved); rushing units are often expected to die, but to nevertheless benefit the player initiating the rush by disrupting the opponent's operations. In military terminology, a suicide charge refers to a charge, usually of infantry or cavalry, into a strong and/or heavily fortified enemy, usually with the intent of breaking the offensive/defensive line and allowing subsequent forces to advance through the breach, or drive the attackers off. ...

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 (or in some cases an SCV rush), a Protoss player may use a Zealot rush, and a Zerg player may use the eponymous and infamous Zergling rush. The units used are almost always cheap, easy to produce, and weak compared to other units. StarCraft is a real-time strategy game by Blizzard Entertainment. ... This article or section contains a plot summary that is overly long. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This article or section contains a plot summary that is overly long or excessively detailed compared to the rest of the article. ...

Occasionally, the term is applied to the different, but related tactic epitomized by the Tank rush present in the Command & Conquer series since Command & Conquer: Red Alert. The tank rush differs in the units are neither cheap nor easily produced, but in a sufficient group they can be all but unstoppable. Similar to the Starcraft etymology, the term is often altered according to the units involved, such as the Prism rush of Red Alert 2 and the Mammoth rush of Command & Conquer 3. This alternate application can also be found in many gaming communities. Command & Conquer is the original title in Westwood Studios Command & Conquer franchise of real-time strategy video games. ... Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 was the follow up to Red Alert. ... The Mammoth Tank is a fictional super-heavy tank in Command & Conquer real-time strategy computer games, with an iconic status among the fan community. ... Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (working title) is the long awaited sequel to Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun. ...

In another departure from the generally derogatory nature attached to the Starcraft etymology, the term can sometimes be used to describe a rapid early game assault, intending to take the opponent by surprise. Some games even go so far as to incorporate the rush into their resource collection, such as Dawn of War and Company of Heroes. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is a Real Time Strategy game for the PC developed by Relic Entertainment and published by THQ. Based on Games Workshops popular tabletop wargame, Warhammer 40,000, Dawn of War was released in September 2004. ... Company of Heroes (CoH) is a real-time strategy (RTS) computer game developed for Microsoft Windows by Relic Entertainment. ...

Origins

The first common appearances of the term rush in this sense came from Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (1995) Warcraft II players used the term Grunt rush, the "Grunts" being the basic Orcish military unit. Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness (usually simply called Warcraft II; sometimes abbreviated to WCII or WC2) is a sequel to the popular real-time strategy game Warcraft, published by Blizzard Entertainment in December 1995. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full 1995 Gregorian calendar). ... Male and Female Orcs as seen in the World of Warcraft. ...

There was a variation of the Grunt rush that involved building a barracks (the primary military structure) before building a town hall (the primary structure for collecting resources and developing the tech tree.) The "barracks first rush" was effective because in the 1.0 release of Warcraft II, the players' starting locations were bound to the players' colors. It was possible to know where a player was located on the map if you knew the starting location for each color. The color/location problem was fixed in the first patch and barracks first rushing became a losing proposition on most larger maps. Since the barracks first rush was a do-or-die tactic, it was banned in most leagues and strongly discouraged by most serious players. Players would start games saying "thf", short for "town hall first". The much later release, Warcraft II Battle.net Edition, forced players to build a town hall first.

In Command and Conquer: Red Alert (1996) so-called tank rushes were a dominant strategy for players using the Soviet forces. Tank Rushes are not true rush, as the units used are neither cheap, fast, nor produced quickly. Tank Rushing is to mass a large number of tanks and then charge them into the enemy base. Since the Soviet's Mammoth Tank is almost as strong as a Tesla Coil (the strongest defense tower in the game) in terms of power and as resilient as a construction yard, it's essentially a moving fortress and are often used. One extension of this for the Soviet forces in Red Alert 2 was a Flak Cap (Flak Capture) Rush. The Soviet player would quickly load two engineers (units capable of capturing enemy buildings) and a Terror Drone (a unit that rendered vehicles useless so early in the game) into a Flak Track (a transport) and rushed the enemy base. The idea was that either the engineers would capture the enemy Construction Yard - their most vital building - or the Construction Yard would turn into a vehicle in which case the Terror Drone would hop in. Either way, the enemy loses their vital means of production and is effectively doomed from that point on, unable to advance any further. Another method for Soviets is to continuously produce Conscripts, the cheapest and most basic Soviet infantry unit. This method is to swarm the enemy using numbers since Conscripts only cost $100, half the price of an Allied GI, and therefore are more inexpensive and expendable. A player also got more Conscripts (about 20 or so) in the beginning of the game, compared to the Allies 10 GIs or Yuri's 6 Initiates. Command & Conquer: Red Alert and its sequels are computer games by Westwood Studios, spun off from the Command & Conquer series. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... Soviet redirects here. ... Soviet redirects here. ... Command & Conquer: Red Alert 2 was the follow up to Red Alert. ...

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 Zerg 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. However, it is important to note that the overall Zerg strategy caters towards massive armies of units - this is reflected in the name the species gives itself, "The Swarm". Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... This article or section contains a plot summary that is overly long. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... In computing, a patch is a small piece of software designed to update or fix problems with a computer program or its supporting data. ... An expansion pack is an addition to an existing game. ...

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 design of RTS-games usually allow a rush of some type to exist. 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 some games, such as Galactic Civilizations, some players consider it unfair for the rush to be applied by artificial intelligence players because the AI does not need to explore the map; it knows where the human players are. The AI can instantly know where to rush and is protected since the human player has usually not done much exploring. 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. For the band, see 1990s (band). ... GalCiv for OS/2 Galactic Civilizations is a turn-based strategy computer game developed by Stardock and released in March, 2003 for Windowsâ€”an earlier version was released for OS/2 in 1994. ... Garry Kasparov playing against Deep Blue, the first machine to win a chess game against a reigning world champion. ... StarCraft is a real-time strategy game by Blizzard Entertainment. ... Battle. ...

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 more recent Age of Empires games, however, the developer made rushing an almost futile strategy. This was done by strengthening the settlement by further fortifying it with projectiles 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. Age of Empires, abbreviated to AoE or AOE, is a history-based real-time strategy computer game released in 1997. ...

In such games, a rush can still be applied, but mostly to weaken your opponent's expansion plans.

Another way to avoid a 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.

Raiding

Raiding is a currently more common variant of the rush. A rush usually implies a strategy that relies heavily on build order, has a very narrow window of time, and aims to either win the game as early as possible or permanently cripple your opponent, often by destroying his important buildings that are too expensive to repair or rebuild and remain competitive in the game. In strategy computer games, of both the turn-based and real-time varieties, a build order is a linear pattern of production, research, and resource management aimed at achieving a specific and specialized goal. ...

Raiding, by contrast, implies a focus on "hit and run" attacks on an enemy's resource gathering units and apparatus — while usually cheaper and somewhat less effective than destroying command centers or expensive military training buildings, it requires relatively little early military presence. A successful raid will usually destroy a couple of economic gathering units and disrupt the enemy's concentration. It will rarely cripple an opponent, but will put them at a noticeable disadvantage in the early and midgame.

Some games have units dedicated to the practice of raiding, such as the cavalry archers in Rise of Nations and light cavalry units in Age of Empires III. In Starcraft, the Terran Vulture is a very fast unit that is often used for raiding enemy worker lines. Additionally, in Empire at War, any rebel landing party of four or less units constitutes a raid party and can bypass space defenses. The Rebel Infiltrator unit, also from Empire at War, can attach a detonation device to buildings and destroy or cripple them. Another effective raiding unit is the "raider" unit in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos is a quick melee unit with an attack that is highly effective against buildings, and can be upgraded to "pillage" or steal resources from an opponent while destroying the buildings. Rise of Nations is a real-time strategy computer game, developed by Big Huge Games and published by Microsoft on May 20, 2003. ... Age of Empires III (also called AoE III) is a real-time strategy (RTS) game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft. ... StarCraft is a real-time strategy game by Blizzard Entertainment. ... Star Wars: Empire at War is a RTS game released February 2006. ... Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, released by Blizzard Entertainment in 2002, is a real-time strategy computer game and the second sequel to Warcraft. ...

Harassing

Harassing is almost the same as the process of rushing, but being extremely cautious so as not to lose the 'harassing' units. It involves hitting valuable but unprotected targets, such as poorly-defended resources, workers that are not blocked off, or merely annoying enemy forces via the use of fast or stealthy units. It can refer to a harass at the start of the game or in its duration. It is very unlikely to occur during the late stages of the game. A good example of a harass is in Warcraft III, where you can equip a fast-running hero with a decent attack or spells (such as a Demon Hunter) with boots of speed. The hero then proceeds to attack the enemy's hero or base. A Blade Master is another example of a good harassing hero, and he can attack workers and/or enemy heroes before using his Wind Walk (invisibility) skill to escape. Accompanying a hero with only one or two trusty supporting units is sometimes called a "lieutentant rush". Harassing is much the same as raiding, involving a hit and run, but covers a wide variety of targets and uses more powerful units, often flying, to deal damage before escaping quickly. This strategy is often used to divert attention away from the attacker's base while they quickly ascend the tech tree in order to obtain the most powerful units early in the game.

In Starcraft, a form of harrassment is called "dancing" your units. This involved someone who was very experienced in micromanagement or also coined "micro-ing". The process of dancing your units involved quickly climbing up the tech tree to create units that are long-ranged and have moderately fast movement. Units such as the Terran Vulture or the Protoss Dragoon are effective at dancing. The units created as fast as possible, with little regard anything other than the neccessary buildings and gatherers. The units are created in amounts ranging from 4-12 (any more usually takes too much time). When the units are sent into the base, the opponent usually does not move so fast and still has slow or close-ranged units. The player dancing attacks with his long-ranged units, and when other units come to attack back, the long ranged units run away. When they get far enough away, either by running faster or when the opponent gives up the chase, they move closer and attack again, until they are chased again. This process does not work well later in the game, and is implemented as an early game strategy. Also, it does not work well with the Zerg long-ranged units, the Zerg Hydralisk, because in early game these units are quite slow-moving and, therefore, not adept to dancing. StarCraft is a real-time strategy game by Blizzard Entertainment. ... Micromanagement (often abbreviated to micro) is a term used in strategy computer games to describe a facet of gameplay. ... In strategy computer games, of both the turn-based and real-time varieties, a tech tree, short for technology tree, is an abstract hierarchical visual representation of the possible paths of research a player can take. ... The Protoss Dragoon is a mechanized assault and support unit in the game Starcraft. ...

Another good example of harassment is Harvester Harassment in the Command & Conquer series. Because of the series' use of Tiberium harvesters (heavily armoured resource collection vehicles), which are expensive and take long to produce, players have developed a type of harassment that use raid tactics to weaken and destroy Harvesters. Unlike worker harassing in other games Harvesters are usually sent out without backup, making this much easier than other types of harassment. Command & Conquer is the original title in Westwood Studios Command & Conquer franchise of real-time strategy video games. ... This article or section contains a plot summary that is overly long. ...

In all cases of harassment the victim will inevitably send troops to safeguard the harassed unit. This is often used as a tactic on its own to divert the majority of the enemy troops away from a strategic point or from their base, which then the harassing player then can attack without fear of retaliation.

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. This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

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 bodycount or Team Deathmatch game such as True Combat: Elite, players will often rush at the enemy in a close quarters location to effectively remove the opponent's chance to react. 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. Another interesting example is the Warthog or Ghost rush common in Halo and Halo 2's capture the flag matches. Typically used in the maps known as Blood Gulch, Danger Canyon, Timberland, and Sidewinder, the strategy revolves around the common practice of spending the first few moments of the game collecting the player's preferred weapons mix. This leaves a team uncoordinated, distributed and ill prepared for a pounce by two or three high speed vehicles into their base. A carefully orchestrated rush, thanks mainly to the powerful weapons fitted to the vehicles, can usually eliminate any remaining defenders and allow an easy capture of the flag. There is a certain amount of humour to be observed in the execution of a simultaneous rush of two players, especially if they choose differing paths to their opponent's base as the teams can end up retrieving the required flag, only to return to base to find their own (a prerequisite for scoring a point) missing. Counter-Strike (CS) is a popular team-based mod of Valves first-person shooter (FPS) Half-Life. ... Unreal Tournament 2004, also known as UT2004 or UT2K4, is a futuristic first-person shooter computer game designed primarily for online multiplayer gaming. ... Halo: Combat Evolved, or simply Halo, is a video game in the first-person shooter (FPS) genre, created by the Microsoft-owned Bungie Studios. ... This article is about the video game. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Similar to and spiritually derived from the "zerg rush" is a phenomenon known in the MMOFPS Planetside as "the zerg". Organized and teamwork-focused Outfits assign this description to the masses of hundreds of players in any faction that travel from base to base in a massive, unorganized squabble - rather than cooperating with fellow Outfits or coordinating with other players, and typically winning by gross numerical superiority rather than any amount of skill or tactical expertise. This tactic is now commonly associated with the Terran Republic faction, as the weapons employed by the Terran Republic have extremely high firing rates. This gives the TR infantry a significant advantage over the other empires, so in most facilities, the Terran Republic usually 'zerg rushes' the target, swarming it with overwhelming numbers of infantry. PlanetSide is a Massively multiplayer online first-person shooter computer game published by Sony Online Entertainment and released on May 19, 2003. ...

Many games attempt to deter "Zerging" in some way, as it is often not considered "the way the game should be played". For example, the Xbox 360 game Rainbow Six: Vegas offers a difficulty mode called 'Realistic', offering the player an opponent which effectively acquires targets and combats against rushes. This causes the players to use effective cover and take well placed shots. However, the enemy can be exploited through the use of smoke grenades, as the player is rewarded Thermal Imaging goggles.

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG)

As in FPS games, the rush tactic is strategically sound in massively multiplayer online games. Unlike FPS games, however, more often than not any occasion where a rush tactics is employed it is backed up by an overwhelming strength in numbers (the rushing side outnumbering the opponents). This particular tactic is usually called Zerging and is considered dishonorable. Many players in Blizzard's World of Warcraft have adopted the term "zerg rush kekekekekekekeke..." and so on. It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Rush (computer gaming). ... World of Warcraft (commonly abbreviated as WoW) is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Blizzard Entertainment and is the fourth game in the Warcraft series, excluding expansion packs and the cancelled Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

Many MMOG companies attempt to inhibit the Zerging by their player base while still encouraging fair use of a rush. Some companies do this by enforcing that the same number of opponents will be on both sides of a battle (instanced arenas or dungeons), some by granting defenders abilities that are especially effective against uncoordinated large scale attacks, and others by providing defensive structures where an outnumbered defensive force can hold off attacking hordes.

Fighting Games

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 the opponent to be unable to move or attack. This can 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. More importantly, most fighting games feature some penalty for blocking too many attacks in a row, such as guard crushes in most Capcom- and SNK-made fighting games, and the increase of the guard meter in the Guilty Gear series. Characters who excel in this style are referred to as "rushdown characters". A rushdown game is inherently a game of calculated risks. For the original NASA meaning, see capsule communicator. ... SNK Playmore (formerly SNK) is a Japanese video game hardware and software company. ... Screenshot of Ky Kiske attacking Sol Badguy. ...

Multiplayer RPG Games

Rushing can also mean an attempt to circumvent the established path of progress, related to powergaming. 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 progression 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 ways 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. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Diablo II, sequel to the popular game Diablo, is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game in a hack and slash or Dungeon Roaming style. ...

Other uses

Although the term is most commonly used in MMO games, it can be applied to many other games as well. For example, a player of a Collectible Card Game can employ a strategy of flooding the enemy with small, cheap targets rather than strong, well-coordinated units. Collectible card games (CCGs), also called trading card games (TCGs), are played using specially designed sets of cards. ...

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