StarCraft 2 Media

[Ratman_tf]

Because they are Blizzard and don't care about fancy graphics blow their wad on graphics and patch in the gameplay later?

When in rome...

[Kageru]

The original starcraft was cool because it because it had a fairly competitive skirmish AI that could generally give a good account for itself (though often flagged a bit mid-game). A couple of friends, as many AI enemies as you could handle and fun would be had on a LAN day. I hope this game will offer the same.

Competitive RTS? Neither the ability nor the interest in trying to gain it.

[rk47]

Most of the 'competitive' RTS play comes from a really, really fast build and good controls as well as taking initiatives. I used to admire this sort of play, but after you start working and had so much stress at work, it's harder to handle the pressure that comes from RTS plays anymore, especially dealing with rushes after a hard day at work. So I kinda retired from competitive RTS altogether and don't bother looking for it. Not even DotA.

I can dig FPS since it requires so much less time investment with short bursts of gratification, I died in 10 seconds but I can come back in half a minute, go in a good streak for a good 2-3 mins before dying again. In RTS, I probably die in the first 5 mins and had zero fun out of it or too busy microing the 8th worker to scout for the enemy base to have any fun.

[Samwise]

The original starcraft was cool because it because it had a fairly competitive skirmish AI that could generally give a good account for itself (though often flagged a bit mid-game).

The AI wasn't all that clever.  One time for shits and giggles I played a 1v7 against it.  I wouldn't recommend repeating this experiment, since it took HOURS to finish and got pretty tedious, but I did wipe out every single one of them just to prove it could be done.  At the end of the game there were all these clumps of units stuck in spots where the pathing had broken down, expansions that had never been properly mined, stuff like that.

[Teleku]

I did it without any exploiting.  I did a 1 v 7 game playing as terrans vs. all zerg.  I grabbed a very defensive map, and managed to beat them.  It basically amounted to letting them harvest all the god damn resources on the map and melting them on my defenses, then sweaping out to clean them all up, but was still kind of fun.

Having said that, the hard AI in Warcraft 3 (after they patched it.  There was a noticable difference after a patch) devistated me and my friends in LAN games.  Holy god we couldn't beat the god damn thing most of the times.  It was doing shit like launching a decoy attack on one side of the map to draw us all out in that direction, then sweeping into our bases with the main force once our units were engaged.  So I'm fairly confident Starcraft 2 should have engaging AI.

In any event, I'm really looking forward to the mods.  I spent more time playing all the various mods for Warcraft 3 than the actual game.

[Trippy]

The comp player in SC is decent at doing an initial rush at you. As long as you are on a map that allows you to easily block/defend your entrance and setup some initial defenses you can "turtle" until you can build enough forces to slowly whittle the comp players down. Long range air is usually the easiest but I liked going ground just cause it's more interesting. This is assuming you are on a "minerals" map (a la BGH) where you don't have to leave your initial starting point to get more minerals/gas. On a Blizzard map this sort of thing is *a lot* harder as you have to rush to grab expansions before the comp players do.

[NiX]

Rumor has it beta starts next week as some gents who went to Blizzard have been put under an NDA until then.

[Murgos]

Rumor has it beta starts next week as some gents who went to Blizzard have been put under an NDA until then.

So, we can expect a release around summer 2010 then?

[Vash]

Didn't see this news anywhere on F13 yet, so this thread seems appropriate for it.

No LAN for your SCII

We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.

Several Battle.net features like advanced communication options, achievements, stat-tracking, and more, require players to be connected to the service, so we're encouraging everyone to use Battle.net as much as possible to get the most out of StarCraft II. We're looking forward to sharing more details about Battle.net and online functionality for StarCraft II in the near future.

Trying to fight piracy hurting gamers once again?   

[Lakov_Sanite]

If you mentioned LAN to anyone 20 and under they wouldn't have a clue what you were talking about.

LAN is dead, even at some sort of computer party you can expect everyone connected through the internet rather than eachothers pc's.

[MrHat]

I'm sure they'll have some PC Bang international version that lets you do it without being connected to the net.

[ezrast]

If you mentioned LAN to anyone 20 and under they wouldn't have a clue what you were talking about.

What makes you say that?

[Ingmar]

Clearly they want to protect the purity of their Steam/LIVE-like achievement system that they haven't announced but will obviously have.

[NiX]

3 versions and no LAN? Oh Blizzard, you're fucking slimey.

[Murgos]

3 versions and no LAN? Oh Blizzard, you're fucking slimey.

Oh, you have to host multiplayer through battle.net?  Teh hoorors, teh hoorors.

How you must suffer.

[jakonovski]

Oh, you have to host multiplayer through battle.net?  Teh hoorors, teh hoorors.

How you must suffer.

Koreans will.

[Malakili]

Well, I think with Starcraft 2 and Diablo III going LANless, battle.net being the mode of multilplayer, WoW accounts being merged with battle.net accounts (or, the encouraging of this), and a new blizzard MMO in the works, we can see all the stars aligning for the Blizzard Station Pass.

I guess, in reality, the lack of LAN support isn't going to negatively effect me very much, in the vast majority of situations where I would want to play LAN, I'll have internet access, but I don't like the direction this is headed.

[schild]

If I were on college, this would piss me off.

But I'm not in college, so, haha.

[NiX]

Oh, you have to host multiplayer through battle.net?  Teh hoorors, teh hoorors.

How you must suffer.

I'm glad you have a hard-on for blizzard and battle.net. I loathe the service and have no faith in them to make it any better than what it is. Maybe they removed all the sliding panes so you don't have to wait an extra 20 seconds for stupid animations. There's also the fact that Blizzard/Battle.net and firewalls do not get along. At all. I could go over to all my friends houses and setup port forwarding, which is a waste of my time, or hamachi and a lan game, which is easy to do.

So, fuck you.

[jakonovski]

So how long until battle.net goes monthly payments? I give it one year, tops.

[Murgos]

My cell phone has two different modes of internet connectivity.  It's not 1999 anymore, every college campus in the western world has pretty much unlimited internet connectivity.

Seriously, who, other than Koreans (and you know Blizzard has a solution for that) plays LAN games?

[Samwise]

Do you have to play the entire game over the WAN connection, or do you just need the connection to battle.net up front for matchmaking?

I was actually at a small LAN party fairly recently where the only Net connection available was satellite, which has too much latency for online gaming to be remotely feasible.  (It was a bit out in the wilderness, close enough to town for power and phone but not for DSL or cable.)  Having to play SC2 over battle.net would make it a no-go for that scenario.

[Lantyssa]

Mainly I see it as a way to require authentication before allowing you to play.

Someone will hack-in a work around within a few months to both avoid verification and enable LAN-play.

[jakonovski]

Do you have to play the entire game over the WAN connection, or do you just need the connection to battle.net up front for matchmaking?

I was actually at a small LAN party fairly recently where the only Net connection available was satellite, which has too much latency for online gaming to be remotely feasible.  (It was a bit out in the wilderness, close enough to town for power and phone but not for DSL or cable.)  Having to play SC2 over battle.net would make it a no-go for that scenario.

A smart system will detect that the players are connected locally, but there's still anti-cheat and stats information moving to battle.net and back, which might cause lag. And lag is what Blizzard does best.

[Ratman_tf]

Yeah, I haven't played a LAN game in over a decade. And I think battle.net is going to be a bit more reliable than Ping0.

[Teleku]

Yeah, it seemed a bit odd at first.  But then I realized it has been about a decade since I did anything LAN related (I think the last time was back in mid high school...).  And even then, the LAN setups we used all had access to the internet since we all needed to download the correct patch versions anyways.  This really shouldn't be that big of an issue.

[Margalis]

It's pretty obvious that Blizzard is miffed that people have been playing Starcraft for a decade and all they make from it is initial box sales. Breaking Stacraft into three parts is one method of moving towards a recurring revenue model, monetizing Battle.net is another. I wouldn't bet on the base Battle.net functionality costing money (though I wouldn't bet against it) but of course there will be all sorts of value-added things to buy.

[Mosesandstick]

Seriously, who, other than Koreans (and you know Blizzard has a solution for that) plays LAN games?

South-East Asians. Though not anywhere as much as they used to. MMORPGs are a far more effective life sucker.

[NiX]

It's pretty obvious that Blizzard is miffed that people have been playing Starcraft for a decade and all they make from it is initial box sales. Breaking Stacraft into three parts is one method of moving towards a recurring revenue model, monetizing Battle.net is another. I wouldn't bet on the base Battle.net functionality costing money (though I wouldn't bet against it) but of course there will be all sorts of value-added things to buy.

I remember someone high up at Blizzard talking about turning subs from B.Net, but they never expanded on it only saying it was all still up in the air. Though I have no doubt in their ability to try and capitalize any way they can.

[Furiously]

I know some people on their 3rd Diablo 2 boxes from getting their accounts banned.  It's brilliant!

[Quinton]

Considering that local networks are all TCP/IP these days (thank the gods), I call total bullshit on the "too hard to support lan and battlenet" excuse.  Obvious smokescreen for "anti-piracy" measure is obvious.

I never once played starcraft on battlenet.  I logged many, many hours playing on local networks against friends and co-workers.

Thanks, Blizzard, you assholes.

[Furiously]

Not an asshole move at all. It's the only way they can protect their investment. I don't begrudge them at all for that decision.

[K9]

Another Battle Report has been posted

Looks sexy as ever

[Fordel]

Want now, giv!

[Sheepherder]

I was actually at a small LAN party fairly recently where the only Net connection available was satellite, which has too much latency for online gaming to be remotely feasible.  (It was a bit out in the wilderness, close enough to town for power and phone but not for DSL or cable.)  Having to play SC2 over battle.net would make it a no-go for that scenario.

The only game I've ever seen play passably over sat is WoW, and that's only because Blizzard does a good job of letting the client believe it's in control while killing you with the shadow nova that went off forty yards away.