Preview: StarCraft II

[paralost]

when this game comes out Korea's economy will crash

 

[BloodyThoughts]

*kicks tower for not having the requirements for the beta or the game*


NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

It just looks so fun!

 

[TransMando]

Awesome. 100% awesome.

 

[Zanez]

Huh, it's a little sad when "you can now select more than 12 units" is a grand new feature.
Bah, but who am I kidding? I'd probably love the game even if it didn't have anything innovative.

heh, not saying its innovative and new to select more than 12 units. Saying its something that the original SC didn't have. It is an upgrade from Starcraft 1, and the unlimited unit selection is just a part of what makes SC2s interface smooth

 

[MortisLegio]

I dont have enough minerals to build more pylons

 

[Scrythe]

Spoiler: Obligatory

 

[Wodan]

I almost paid $400 for an invite selling on eBay two days ago...

But then someone I followed on twitter tweeted about this cool blog giving away free invites as a promotion. I couldn't believe it, so I went to try to get one for the hell of it.

Lo and behold, 2 hours later, I actually had a fresh, unused beta key sitting in my e-mail box.

For those who want to try it for themselves, the blog is here, the URL is long so I've shortened it:



Good luck guys!

Can we ban this guy or something? so far all i have seen is him advertising his webpage to mine data in the confusion of the SC2 Beta.

 

[Rathy]

I love having a computer to run this very well(better than my previous computer would run SC1), but no beta, and then just watching all this awesome gameplay... Argh at never getting into any of the betas anywhere!

But really, the game looks amazing. I really just want a chance to play around with the new tech trees and unit strengths so much.

 

[whaleswiththumbs]

This will most definetly be a pickup for me or my dad, we love the original. Although i never played with much "strategy" just "oh that works for now", "more of those and when in deep troubke "ok i'm done playing for 5 mins"

 

[Banana Phone Man]

I realy like the look of this game. I never got SC1 but I have played WC3 a lot. If they are similar in the way they play and feel then I will definately get this. Will I be missing out on not playing SC1? Should I get SC1 first?

 

[PxDn Ninja]

Doesn't matter if it's a new Mona Lisa. I won't be buying it until they remove the DRM and restore the LAN.

Okay, that's just childish.

Nope, exercising my rights as a consumer to protest against a direction I don't like.

I'm not saying you are wrong and you should certainly vote with your money, but how come Steam doesn't garner the same response? That's what Blizzard has made though, a system where you loose some rights for other services.

Because Valve can do no wrong, man. Valve can do no wrong.

I would have said because unlike Blizzard, Valve makes good games. OH SNAP!

But in all seriousness Steam is a solid DD system that doesn't have it's weak points (being slighly unstable ranking high). I'm personally shocked somewhat at the removal of LAN from SC2, but I hated the first SC, and hate all Warcraft games, so I have no intention of picking this game up. I'm sure for the fans of the series it will be great, but I know I will hate just about every design decision they go with in it.

 

[BlindMessiah94]

Drool...seriously...I need to go wipe my keyboard now...

 

[martin's a madman]

Eh. Seriously, if Starcraft 1 is the best the genre has to offer, then I don't care for that genre.

But holy shit does that game look pretty.

This. Looks to be a re-skinned version of the original, which is great if you liked the first one... However, those of us that like the improvements made to the genre over the last 12 years are going to have to give this one a pass. Seriously? Your air units have to stop to fire? WTF is the point??? I will take my TA/SupCom any day thanks!

Well, there would have to be continuous combat in an RTS, and having an Aircraft almost equal to the size of a tank whizzing around in circles strafing with lasers seems a bit silly when you think about it. Also, having stop and go control helps to provide greater Micro Management which is VERY important in smaller scale RTS games.

 

[tetron]

I get more anxious for this game's release every time I watch a new gameplay video. I love how all the units and structures are detailed and revamped while still being recognizable. Is that the sunken colony ? omg it is =D ! I am looking forward to seeing how those yellow minerals affect people's strategy. I know I'm gonna be bumrushing those places. I am disappointed in that I was hoping to see a zerg/protoss hybrid race in this game.

 

[Aptspire]

I appreciated the old basis of the game
I liked the new units and abilities
But I LOVED what you did at 4:23
...Pylons...

 

[Kikosemmek]

Yep, I'm in the beta and it's just great.

The Protoss so far are my favourites, largely for two things: the new music, and the Colossus. It wtf-pwns Zerg and Bio-Terran.

I lost most of the games I played so far, and I've enjoyed all of it.

 

[Weaver]

I'm not saying you are wrong and you should certainly vote with your money, but how come Steam doesn't garner the same response from you? That's what Blizzard has made though, a system where you loose some rights for other services.

Who says it doesn't? What Steam doesn't do is: slow my games down, limit my installs, limit my use of mods, force me to use one d/l system, and snoop without my permission.
What it does do is give me instant messaging that I can turn off, a robust package and reasonable prices some of the time. It also support independent developers and talks to its community.

That counts for a lot, and while I understand that companies have all gone down the DRM route, there are fair trade-offs and unfair trade-offs. I won't buy from those I believe have made unfair trade-offs.

Steam also crashes occasionally, have a support staff where sarcasm is an inbred trait and hides too many options away; but if I have to have a DRM, it's the one I'll put up with.

I guess we could go through and weigh every feature to see where the scales land, but my point is that that's precisely what the new Battle.net system does. Unlimited install, downloadable clients, cross game chat, etc. If that's your DRM of choice, I don't see why this one is any different at least in a broad sense of the scheme.

Do you know if you have to be logged into battle.net to access the single player game? I know the beta doesn't include single player content, but I haven't been following the battle.net features very closely so I'm hoping you knew.

IIRC, there is a singleplayer mode offline but you won't get achievements or any of the online features (obviously) since you can't log in.

Re: the LAN issue... if they go forward with the "you get LAN pings but you need to maintain a net connection" I don't think it'll be much of a problem. We live in the era of widespread wifi and broadband; tech-savvy folks are almost SURE to have stuff like that. I can't remember the last time I LANned without an internet connection.

And my lag on B.net has been extremely miniscule if any.

My personal issue with the LAN I hosted back in the days of yore was the 32 person switch we had couldn't support an ethernet connection. Hell, maybe we were just setting it up wrong, I dunno.

 

[Nmil-ek]

I dont have enough minerals to build more pylons

You require more, vespene gas.

 

[ilion]

Ill bet the game is awesome, both in terms of narrative and gameplay. Loved the first one. But i dont think i will return to this type of rts. Iam a bit tired of it, ( used to play age of empires till the crack of dawn...).But ever since i played games like homeworld, supreme commander the total war series, well, i just cant go back. probably buy it anyway for the singleplayer campaign.

 

[samsonguy920]

So... you didn't get to see the singleplayer? Disappointing - I'm not really interested in the multiplayer aspect of most RTS's because I'm basically not very good at them, but I liked Starcraft 1 for having a good story mixed in with the RTS battles.

They're keeping the singleplayer very close to their chests until the game comes out.

Righto - I'll have to look and see for the review when it comes out - though did Blizzard go ahead with the plan to split the singleplayer plot into 3 parts, only 1 of which comes with the game? i.e. the rest are downloadable content..?

I heard talk of that awhile go (a year, I think) - just wanna see if it was troll talk or real.

There will be one game and two expansions. The first game, Wings of Liberty, is going to have the Terran campaign (30 missions, aka three times the size of the Terran campaign in the first game and the size of StarCraft I overall). The first expansion will have the Zerg campaign (again, 30-some-odd missions) and the second expansion will have the Protoss campaign (30-some-odd missions).

Honestly, having spoken to members of the team, I've really come away with the idea that the trilogy was the best way to go in order to do everything they wanted to do while still letting us, y'know, play the game before 2014.

I myself like that idea than doing all three races at once and then the expansions just kinda fizzle in comparison. Though considering Blizzard's habit of making the expansions tougher than the original, I don't think fizzle is in their dictionary.

Fo-shizzle