StarCraft II

[Jozrael]

Updating the drivers didn't do much of anything, but fortunately it's only the campaign that violates my system so. Multiplayer (and basic customs...I haven't tried any with thousands of units onscreen yet), challenges, etc. are all just peachy it seems.

[Moribund]

The games great, everything I expected and more. My only complaint is that my laptop barely runs it. :/

[Hulavuta]

I really want to get the game, and while I'm sure the gameplay itself is probably fantastic, I hate that there's no LAN play, and only the Terran campaign. To anyone who bought the game: Was the campaign editor good?

[Jozrael]

Do you even have to ask?

It's easier to use than WE, and stupendously powerful. With enough practice you can seriously emulate most any other gametype out there, which puts the power of the development of NEW game innovations at the fingers of every sc2 mapmaker.

[Hulavuta]

I don't have it so, yes, I have to ask.

But now I really want to get it.

[Midnight_Carnival]

Starcraft I came out when I was in highschool, my brother's friends all used to play it in on the LAN in the school's computer-room, I really wanted to play it...

When I did get to play it I was slightly disapointed. I found the terrain annoyingly blocky and then it was like they tried to fix that by adding millions of air units. The resources were almost always finite, so large portion of the game were about bieng able to secure places where you could build your next base when you devastated the natural resouces in an area. You'd think a race as advanced as the bloody Protos would at leas consider the prospect of sustainibility. Also I found it very tactical but not very strategic. And the limit on the size of your army annoyed me ..."but you can have literally hundreds of units..." they told me. Yeeeesh you can if you kill off all your drones and just spawn zerglings... The there was the annoying little detail that they originally gave one race the ability to steal stuff (the zerg) but stealing the command centre did more damage than the crappy kamakazee marines you could build, sure they did quite a bit of damage, and they could have even been slightly useful if they ran just a leeetle bit faster! ... When the protos got to steal stuff it was just unfair because the other races couldn't.

I'm hearing so much about Starcraft II, and I'd love to play it, honestly, I would... but a dark and cynical voice keeps whispering to me that Blizzard games are more fun to wait for than to actually play.

[Jozrael]

When I did get to play it I was slightly disapointed. I found the terrain annoyingly blocky and then it was like they tried to fix that by adding millions of air units.

StarCraft 1 came out over 12 years ago. It has some aspects that today are rather ridiculous. It's essentially a game on a flat 2D map that some aspects are flagged high ground. The terrain is yes, very blocky (a feature that has since been made obsolete as we've hacked the editor and made it possible to terrain the map EXACTLY as we like. Most customs in b.net nowadays, and even the professional maps played by the melee leagues, feature 'Extended Terrain', which is terrain done square by square (not the ginormous isometric tiles Blizzard originally intended) with the pathing edited rather minutely.

I don't really understand the comment on air units. I like the fact that they stack (and somewhat wish SC2 emulated the SC1 air-stacking functionality a bit more faithfully), but don't view it as a way to avoid using ground units which are still wholly viable. That being said, the pathing of SC2 ground units is LEAPS AND BOUNDS better than in sc1.

The resources were almost always finite, so large portion of the game were about bieng able to secure places where you could build your next base when you devastated the natural resouces in an area. You'd think a race as advanced as the bloody Protos would at leas consider the prospect of sustainibility.

There's two mindsets on this. Personally, I like the -strategic- depth to the game that adding in economic considerations creates. I like knowing you have to expand, and having to fight for them, try to prevent the opponent from expanding, etc. To competitive players, unlimited resources would cheapen the game immensely. That being said, many casual players feel the way you do - which is why people play BGH (Big Game Hunters) and like 'money maps' religiously, which DO have infinite resources.

Also I found it very tactical but not very strategic.

Tbh, my response here is simply to play it more (although I'm hardly ACTUALLY suggesting that now: SC2 awaits with all its glory and all the lack of the UI flaws of sc1 ). The more you play, the more you understand the meta of the game. If you don't know the build orders of the game you can hardly begin to understand the overarching strategy. All I can say is trust me that strategy is critical to competitive play on starcraft, not just tactics. However, it takes a bit of instruction to be able to see how it works. I don't mean this offensively, just saying that those who aren't versed in the metagame aren't going to understand the strategical implications of SC. Example: You scout your opponent and notice they haven't taken their gas early. What does this mean? Likely a rush of low tier units, as they don't need much gas for that. If you don't notice much in their base, be ready for a proxy rush (Terran or Protoss build structures off the beaten path between your base near you to try to surprise you). Perhaps they did a FE (fast expand) to a hidden spot to try to hide it. They're almost certainly NOT teching (rushing to more advanced units to try to get an edge that way). Etc. etc. All of that is gleaned by a competitive player simply by noticing the lack of a single building.

And the limit on the size of your army annoyed me ..."but you can have literally hundreds of units..." they told me. Yeeeesh you can if you kill off all your drones and just spawn zerglings...

Tbh, this annoys us custom creators just as much. Simply because the game is so old, they didn't have the tech to have so many units on screen at once. This issue was even WORSE for wc3 melee games (although thankfully alleviated in the customs). You can have up to 200 units, or 160 supply in a normal game (leaving an allowance of 40 workers). If you find yourself maxing out on army...why not just attack o_O? The game isn't really supposed to be who can build up to the army of 10 thousand units first and then have some battles

The there was the annoying little detail that they originally gave one race the ability to steal stuff (the zerg) but stealing the command centre did more damage than the crappy kamakazee marines you could build, sure they did quite a bit of damage, and they could have even been slightly useful if they ran just a leeetle bit faster! ... When the protos got to steal stuff it was just unfair because the other races couldn't.

The underlying philosophy of both sc1 and sc2 was/is unique races. WC2 and most other RTS of the time had virtually identical races with different graphics. The point of the races is original, unique mechanics. In a competitive match, the ability of the Toss to steal stuff is NOT overpowered in the slightest (and in fact, very rarely used except ironically in mirror matches to grab carriers). When people are newer to the game, and the game goes much slower due to inexperience, the ability to grab a worker of an opposing race, and learn an entire new tech tree as well as double your supply limit...yes, that's overpowered, but that's simply because the game isn't being played 'properly'. There are DOZENS of examples of this, where inexperience means players can't leverage their units best. Lets take zealots vs vultures for example. With 2 newbs playing each other, simply attack moving next to each other, the zealots will MASSACRE the vultures. However, put two pros against each other and zealots RUN from vultures who can patrol-micro to fire on the move and never sustain a hit of damage from the zealots. The game is balanced around the professional scene, so the vultures don't get stat buffs so they can take zealots in an even fight with no micro.

Honestly, the choice is entirely yours, but I don't think you gave sc1 a fair shake based on your comments. If you don't even play sc2, then how could you possibly be giving IT a fair shake ? Try grabbing a copy from a friend and playing with guest access to check it out before you buy.

_________________

[Midnight_Carnival]

<is smiling>

Will play it before I criticise it.
...but don't expect me to hold back, I've got a thousand years worth of backdated generic rants which can be applied to any and every situation!

[cretin]

oooh very excited umc is already being made sofunsofun

[Jozrael]

I look forward to it!

@cretin: What UMS you play?

[cretin]

so far just testing whatever i find online out. most of it is still unfinished, so i tried the left 4 dead, parasite, some tower defense. gonna be a while before some good stuff comes out i think.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

I'm playing mostly the single player campaign, as I really stink at multiplayer. I'm absolutely loving the campaign. For those who don't like that it's terran only, while that is true, you get a campaign potentially as large as all three of the first game's campaigns together, plus a lot more interesting choices to be made, and a greatly expanded sellection of Terran units that is far bigger than what you get in multiplayer. You are also forced to make interested choices, which means you'll never get all the possible units and such at any one time.

I personally think it's possibly the best single player campaign of any RTS ever.

[Zarel]

The games great, everything I expected and more. My only complaint is that my laptop barely runs it. :/

Yeah, the campaign requires so many resources. I have an Nvidia 9400M that runs multiplayer fairly well on Normal graphics, but still lags tremendously on Low graphics in campaign.

I really want to get the game, and while I'm sure the gameplay itself is probably fantastic, I hate that there's no LAN play, and only the Terran campaign. To anyone who bought the game: Was the campaign editor good?

I've never really understood the "only the Terran campaign" complaint. It reminds me of complaining about getting a $5 bill in change instead of five $1 bills. Blizzard probably spent much more to create the one SC2 Terran campaign than all three SC1 campaigns, and you'll probably spend about as long playing the one SC2 Terran campaign than all three SC1 campaigns. The SC2 Terran campaign is a lot more sophisticated than the SC1 campaigns, you know - between campaigns, you can interact with your surroundings and research upgrades and recruit mercenaries and stuff.

One thing I didn't like was the plot:

Spoiler:

There was practically no plot movement. For the main plot: Kerrigan becomes human again, there's a prophecy about an evil Xel'Naga being that wants to take over the universe and only Kerrigan can stop it, and Mengsk is no longer popular after some incriminating evidence about his evil plots were revealed. It just doesn't seem like anything happened.

[Moribund]

@Spoiler Well think about it. Wings is only one third of the campaign (even though there is lots of content). The Terran campaign of Brood War had as much movement.

I don't really like how everyone grew a bunch of facial hair (INCLUDING KERRIGAN!!! j/k j/k), but in gneral the plot is good. It certainly isn't amazing but it's pretty good. Lots of polish with the voice acting everywhere and stuff to click on onboard the Hyperion. Difficulty is pretty good. I'm playing on hard and it doesn't always baby you like games often do nowadays due to the damned casual market.

I like how each mission is tailored to the introduced unit and they perform well in this situation, but you can see clearly why he older units were phased out for the new. Like Firebats are cool but the don't have the range and speed of a Hellion or how Goliaths are good but don't have the mobility or a Viking.

As for the REAL game, the multiplayer- I've only played a couple skirmishes vs the AI (my internet keeps disconnecting randomly) and it seems good. The maps are just right and in general there seems to be a lot more valid options.

I don't like the Zerg now, who were my favourite in SCI.
-Hydras now Tier 2
-No Lurkers (I love dropping one or two in the middle of an enemy base early in the game)
-Using Queens and manually adding more eggs just seems like a needless APM sucker
-Walloffs make Zergling runbys unlikely
While there a lot of changes that I like about Zerg, like better pathfinding and creep spreading, they just play too differently now

Terrans on the other hand are great.
-They have good harass with Hellions and Reapers
-MULES
-Reliable Walloffs and Supply doors
-Honestly pretty much every change
I can forgive them for no medics.

And the other race is inexcusably cheap and takes no skill whatsoever so I won't mention them here.

[Jozrael]

Hahahaha I'm a Toss player generally on MP...because I do best with them. xD.

@Zarel: Also,

Spoiler:

Findlay's part to play

was significant.

I enjoyed the plot, even if I do agree there wasn't all that much plot movement. The Protoss missions in particular made me think of just a rehashed WC3 vanilla plot