[Nuke]

i haven't tried the multiplayer yet. im still practicing against the ai. it probably took me a couple years to get somewhat good at the original starcraft, and i expect to get slaughtered when i hit the servers. the only game i ever kicked ass at in multi is probably quake wars. i got it the day it came out and so i had a practice advantage. but i didnt really like the gameplay all that much. starcraft 2 i got at least 3 weeks behind the hordes of kiddies, and considering i seldom spend an hour a day on games,  im not expecting anything good to happen when i hit the servers.

id probibly play as zerg but im not quite 100% used to the new building hierarchy. im glad the new queens solve the larva lock problem. in sc1 a big issue with starting off as zerg was the time it took for the larva to spawn. you could have the resources to build lots of units, but your stuck waiting for larva. so the new zerg have a few things i like, but you have to upgrade to lair to get hydras, and i dont like that. im trying to get used to roaches and banelings. i also really miss lurkers and guardians.

has anyone looked into the modding potential of the game yet? be awesome to make a freespace mod or something.

[Ghostavo]

Most epic game ever!

 

[Droid803]

haha

Spoiler:

25 mineral extractor wins the game

[Mongoose]

Okay, I don't even play the game, but that was ridiculous.

[Spoon]

lol!  

Also, I have to admit. Force fields are awesome and I should use them more

[SpardaSon21]

I beat the SC2 campaign, and unlike the awesome SC1 and BW campaigns I have no urge to replay this one.  My biggest problem is with the characters, or actually the complete lack of them.

Spoiler:

James Raynor went from being an honest Marshal betrayed by the Confederates and forced to sign on with Mengsk since it was that or die horribly to the Zerg, and was eventually betrayed again, this time by Mengsk, and vowed vengeance for Kerrigan and Tarsonis in the role of the gallant white knight, to being a drunken ex-outlaw incapable of motivating leadership who forgot what the hell he was doing with a entire battlecruiser at his disposal as evidenced by him getting drunk in a dive bar on Mar Sara of all places, and would have had serious loyalty issues with the crew of the Hyperion about their plans to take down Mengsk but oddly never had any as they were apparently fine with the boss drinking his ass off in the butt end of nowhere when there's an evil dictator to topple.

Kerrigan and Arcturus Mensgsk weren't there at all, since they never did anything.  Kerrigan was not the evil scheming magnificent ***** she was in BW because she didn't do anything except send a few swarms out to take out fringe worlds, and was generally not a credible threat to the Koprulu Sector as evidenced by the lack of any sort of Dominion response against her.  Mengsk was not his magnificently bastardly self either since everyone played him for a fool, from his son Valerian stealing half the Dominion Navy and taking it to Char to Raynor stealing the Odin and leaking Mengsk's actions on Tarsonis, and especially him not telling Findlay to shoot Raynor in the lower back so he could get a chance to gloat before Raynor died painfully of the trauma and blood loss.  Mengsk had no contingency plans at all for anything, which should tell you how far he fell.

And of course there was that cutscene where it shows Kerrigan on Tarsonis as the Zerg start swarming, and she doesn't cloak or snipe or do anything remotely ghostly despite her being a Ghost, and has no troops and no backup despite her leading a force that just kicked major Protoss ass, and she just drops her weapon and lets the Zerg take her with no show of nothing-to-lose defiance towards either the Zerg or Mengksk, removing any sort of badass from the character of Sarah Kerrigan.

Tosh was, well, utter tosh, and the best thing about him was getting to team up with Nova to take his operation down.

Zeratul went from being an invisible Cerebrate-killing badass to an invisible whining emo.

And I really, really hate the art style since all that large, ostentatious bling looks like it belongs in the grimdarkness of the 41st Millennium.  I know SC2 is a ripoff of 40k, but all that heavy metal really only fits in 40k where everything else is just as ridiculous.  Valerian and his father have enough metal on them to qualify as Captains of the Ultramarines, which is just way, way too much for a universe that is trying to take itself somewhat seriously.

[Nuke]

i finally went on line. im in the ****ing bronze league. i cant keep up with these skinny energy drink gulping hyperactive add kids anymore.

[Nuke]

what is it with battle net. i got dropped 7 times tonight. i just won an epic battle, and the battle.net up and disappears from the internet while the score screen is loading. the old battlenet didnt do this and i used ****ing dialup back then.

[Droid803]

Bnet2.0 \o/
So good you won't want LAN.

WAIT WHAT?

[Spoon]

Bnet2.0 \o/
So good you won't want LAN.

WAIT WHAT?

Honestly, I didn't expected anything else from the guy that made the xbox live (which imo, isn't as great as people make it out to be).

Are we getting chatboxes any time soon yet?
Ya know, BASIC PC GAME STUFF -_-

[Nuke]

i know, it used to be you could talk to people and get a game going. all this automatic matchmaking, while it does get you in the game faster, it has its limits. if you have a really good game with a bunch of people, you could form up another game with them. back when every game had lan support, nobody had access to a network. but now that everyone has a lan, very few games actually support lan play. i kinda think its a very stupid way to do things. pc gamers like to have lan parties, and all they've done is make it difficult.

[Droid803]

They said they were going to add chatrooms in or something at one point, but man, the LAN thing's near inexcusable...
Fine, make me log on to verify, whatever, don't make me use you ****ty online service, and have people drop from lag when we're sitting two ****ing meters away from each other.

The entire Bnet2.0 basically reeks of the console-generation "get people in game as fast as possible, screw everything else" mentality, which, frankly, is stupid for organizing...anything but quickmatch games.

Well, I wouldn't expect anything else from the retards that made XBL and by extension the sodding lazy-ass PC port atrocity known as Gay****ingWindowsLive. (by god, they kept the x/y/a/b keys for the controls...on the keyboard. WTF man. I don't use your crummy controller.)

[QuantumDelta]

The unpopularity of LAN (among developers) is somewhat related to pirating.
Pirates will play on LAN with hamachi or whatever similar VPN tech instead of using their bnet services because of the registration required.

I, roll my eyes and spit on the industry.

[Nuke]

seems i do better in team play, i made the gold league, and sot comfortable at 25. though i blame the surplus of teenage angsty noobs that i had to fight in the placement matches (of which 4 i won, because one opponent threw a fit and quit, which propted another one, and it turned into 3v1 real fast). thinking about doing 4v4 tomorrow. ive been using a zergling rush early on and after that shoot right for the brood lords as my finishing unit of choice. the protoss strategy of choice seems to be to come in with lots of void rays. but as zerg ive got at least 2 effective units against them (one being hydras, the other being whatever unit you morph into a brood lord). ive found that i have more trouble fighting terrans, im always getting swamped by marines and tanks. as for zerg theyre a lot closer to fighting protoss.

The unpopularity of LAN (among developers) is somewhat related to pirating.
Pirates will play on LAN with hamachi or whatever similar VPN tech instead of using their bnet services because of the registration required.

I, roll my eyes and spit on the industry.

the original starcraft had a spawn install mode specifically for lan parties, there was no need to pirate the game, you just install spawn copies on all your comps and play the game. it was a nice way to let people who wanted to play lan games without forcing them to pirate the game. single player didnt work with a spawn install, so it also allowed people to preview the game while attending a lan party, the game company got what was effectively the best free advertising you could imagine. no doubt this is what led to the long term success of the original starcraft (selling copies 10+ years after the release date).

there are better ways to prevent piracy than to have the stat servers babysit our licenses. i wouldn't doubt they keep their activation servers separate from their stat servers. the game could still register in with the activation servers every once and awhile. if two copies with the same activation code come up at the same time, lock down that license until the user uninstalls the offending copies.

theres a reason i perfer pc games over console games and one of those is lan games, which is just as important as the better graphics and better input options. what there trying to do is bring the pc gamers and console gamers together so they can market to a larger audience, but what theyre really doing is pissing off pc gamers by forcing the half ass console netplay features on us while were used to something far superior. console gamers are none the wiser since the multiplayer is better than none at all (or worse split sceen ). so i really hope that enough people get angry about it and petition for lan support with the expansion pack releases.

[mxlm]

The entire Bnet2.0 basically reeks of the console-generation "get people in game as fast as possible, screw everything else" mentality, which, frankly, is stupid for organizing...anything but quickmatch games.

It's really not hard to make a party. It's really not hard to message people you've played against.

And the matchmaking system has proven to be rather good (yes, I did have earlier misgivings; they're gone now, as damn near everyone I look at has a 50% w/l ratio).

Sure, support chat rooms. Yes, there should be LAN play. But beyond that? It works. Well, even.

[Droid803]

You say that but I still haven't managed to add some of my friends
Might just be my failure though, lol.

[QuantumDelta]

The unpopularity of LAN (among developers) is somewhat related to pirating.
Pirates will play on LAN with hamachi or whatever similar VPN tech instead of using their bnet services because of the registration required.

I, roll my eyes and spit on the industry.

the original starcraft had a spawn install mode specifically for lan parties, there was no need to pirate the game, you just install spawn copies on all your comps and play the game.

These days, that's called piracy.

[Mongoose]

(or worse split sceen )

Not really on-topic, but dude, split-screen multiplayer is awesome.  Nothing beats sitting right next to your buddy and rubbing his face in your awesomeness.

[Liberator]

The unpopularity of LAN (among developers) is somewhat related to pirating.
Pirates will play on LAN with hamachi or whatever similar VPN tech instead of using their bnet services because of the registration required.

I, roll my eyes and spit on the industry.

the original starcraft had a spawn install mode specifically for lan parties, there was no need to pirate the game, you just install spawn copies on all your comps and play the game.

These days, that's called piracy.

Except it can't be piracy if the company is providing the option of doing the spawn install.

[mxlm]

Might just be my failure though, lol.

Or theirs. Confirm they're giving you the right character code (er, if you're using realid, well, don't look at me).