Playing the SC2 beta

[Demongod]

Best way to describe it: Starcraft with Warcarft 3's streamlined UI (even evolved one level) and a fresh new coat of dazzling graphics.

Beyond that? Why did they do away with some of the better voice acting? I liked it when the zealots and carriers were large hams. They're far more subdued now .

Playing protoss so far. Void rays are really fun. Get 6 of them. Run into a base. Snipe the mining center. Use to contain. Expand like crazy. Since you're getting a fleet beacon anyway to upgrade speed, now you have access to carriers and mothership ^_^.

Mothership is highly underwhelming though. Gee, a giant, fat, slow arbiter.

But you can only have one at a time!

(What kind of fail is that anyway?)

[Peralisc2]

Well it's sort of like sumer? Or any not so great support. In order to avoid making it like certain EX supports, they fall into the other extreme of the balance ...

Does the mothership still have the black hole ability?


I havn't checked out SC2 for a while now, since i sort of care about Diablo 3 a lot more. ^^ (and preparing to sue blizz if they don't add assa in there too! , because i feel my customer rights are hurt or something ... causes me depression, dunno, will come up with a good excuse )

[Demongod]

Nope. Abilities: mass recall (same as arbiter I think, haven't tried it yet) and vortex, which just puts a bunch of air units into one spot. I think it's like a channeling stasis field if I recall correctly.

Either way...a fat cloaker, but considering that the vortex ability can **** over detection, it's more for a giant shield for the rest of your units.

On the plus side, in a 2v2+, a mothership cloaks your allies' units too.

But overall, it's simply a case of "okay, I have a bunch of minerals and gas sitting around, let's make a mothership".

It doesn't have the uber-awesome black hole, planet cracker, and time bomb abilities though .

Black hole would simply be amazing.

[Peralisc2]

I see, they just had to "fix" things. D:

Oh well black holes are still just physically theoretic bodies ... some fans might have argued with blizzard over that topic enough to get them removed??? But this is starcraft and it's not like everything in there is proven yet with 100% accuracy. >_>
Or maybe they try to keep distance from the red-alert aspect ...

Still waiting to see the protoss-zerg hybrid. Hope i will live long enough to see that at least (considering their slow release i am not sure i'll survive it ). Have they revealed / leaked any info on that? Can't find anything of it.

Well next Blizzcon is in October this year. We sure will get a lot of new info!!!

[Demongod]

Blizzcon?

SC2's coming out July 27th of this year, Pera. So yeah. More or less two months away as far as I'm concerned.

[Peralisc2]

I should really check their sites more frequently.

Well then they will keep workin on diablo 3 and on many extra WOW expansions? And in Oktober they might actually announce Warcraft 4?
Sure 2 strategy games at same time is not a great idea since they would compete with themselves, but to be fair the fanbase is split up there and many prefer the warcraft universe.


So far from what i remember terran had some collosus guy (an unit you build with your SCV), protoss had mothership, but did zerg ever had some major "badass" unit? ...

EDIT:
ROFL?! You can sell your custom made maps if you want through some feature!! XD
I doubt i wanna buy into that, but Blizz is awsome! That i got to say!

[InigoMontoya]

I have been unimpressed with the SC2 beta. Where is the evolution in gameplay? The game is 11 years old and other than graphical upgrades and some minor terrain functionality, it's exactly the same game we loved in the late '90's. I had been hoping for more...

[ANIMEniac]

I think the design team wanted to keep to the original as close as possible. We all know of the game horror stories of gamer rage when a squeal ends up with any differences from the original.

I like how it feels like the old SC, but also involves more strategic unit building. Adding unit sub-types and passive advantage/disadvantages keeps people on their toes on how they build their armies and support teams. The game play does require more micro management than the original. In the old game, most of what i remember is just massing units and attacking (of course this is mainly b/c this was my early noob gamer days). There are tons of units with unique abilities that you really need to use well.

For example:
- a protoss sentry using the force field or stasus field to block units
- Protoss Pheonix levitation ability
- Terran Vikings transformations
- Terran Reapers to harass gatherers
- Zerg Corruptor? (forgot which) that can slow units, spawn infested marines, or mind control

[Peralisc2]

If you compare the leap from war2 to war3 to the one from sc to sc2 , i think warcraft brought more progress. At least for now it looks that way, but SC2 has nice mechanics and completely new very interesting user interface, that appears better than the one in warcraf3.

Althought SC2 probably dosn't even have mercenary camps (neutral buildings on the map where you hire special units) i think they brought great enough innovation to the game. They still have those observer towers on some maps, right? That is a completely new strategy element.

Sc1 was more about a button mash, having so called macro! >_>
I still remember reading some forum comments complaining about Sc2 being more automated, people wanting to keep the old CLICK CLICK CLICK system instead of a more organized newer control system such as war3 has. I am sure they added some new extra key functions to better control over the units + i remember some new formations for battle.

As for micro-intensivity, from what i seen in the videos, it does look like it compared to sc1, but if i still decide if i buy the game or not depending on how well they got rid of the silly mass towering (example humans in war3) and mass units (example hunts+spiders in 2v2) strategies. If the game dosn't strongly discourage those type of no thinking tactics, i will just play the campaign and obviously won't even suggest to others to buy the game.
No matter how good the interface, the bad gameplay can negate everything and get the entire value of the game way below zero. Kind of like alteil with shiny cards, but imbalanced stuff ...

[ANIMEniac]

From games I have played, it is not so much mass vs mass. In reality, you don't want it to ever get to that point. From some nice vids and my own experience, it is more about multiple well-controlled skirmishes. Each skirmish will give you info on enemy strength and your next move should be about your next unit progress.

If Terran walls up and masses marines, I'm going to use banelings (zergling transforms into kamikaze balls) and have roaches ready to finish off after blowing up your buildings and units.
If the Terran doesn't move on to making Hellions for anti-zerg or Marauders to stop the armored roaches, then I'm more than likely to run him over again. Of course, the smart thing for me is to also watch out for his "counter" and start planning other units to stop his units.

Right now the maps being played are 1v1 or 2v2. There is only so much resources unless you aggressively expand. The games are short b/c people are opting to do early rush to keep each other off guard and rely on smaller skirmishes to win overall game than to hope for a single mass unit all-out-war to determine the game.