StarCraft 2 Thread.

[Fayde]

You really need to get that game... Holy cow. I'd go as far to say I'd pay for half of it just so you can play it with Justin and I.

[Waspman]

JUSTIN, GO DELETE HALF YOUR HARD DRIVE
LIKE RIGHT NOW

[Fayde]

I gots SCII on my new comp!!! I LOOKS AWESOME!!!!!!!! It plays so much nicer too, it's nice and smooth. Honestly I didn't know my old computer played games at such a low frame rate... Didn't even notice it till I got something better though.

[Waspman]

Awesome. You probably noticed but the beta is back! With some new additions, including all AI difficulties! Oh god, we need to play!

[Waspman]

Oh my god, Blizzard's AI makes the AI Mod seem like a joke.
I can't beat Very Hard, let alone Insane. Granted, I am pretty rusty. But the thing is, the AI actually changes builds unlike the AI Mod which always does the same thing. Like Protoss with the AI Mod would always start off massing Zealots and then attack, and if I'm Zerg all I had to do to counter it was mass Roaches. I try the same thing with Blizzard's new AI, it discovers what I'm doing and OMG SUDDENLY IMMORTALS AND SENTRIES IN MY BASE BLARG I AM DEAD
gg, Blizzard. gg

[Waspman]

I've been playing Placement matches and it's funny.. almost every single opponent has done nothing but wall off, turtle and then tech to air. I just massacred a dude who was trying to mass Carriers and Void Rays with Hydralisk because the second I saw that wall I knew he was going air. I did lose one game though.. bastard had Dark Templar freaking everywhere and I had no detection, which really threw me off because I've never actually seen anyone use Dark Templar in StarCraft 2.

EDIT: lol You really need to see this replay:
www.mediafire.com/?yyyg55zztmm

[Fayde]

Why Starcraft 2 is better than the first:

Atmosphere:
While I am not a graphics junky, the graphics in the game are one of the main reasons why I would say SCII is better than the first. It is not because it is 3D and the old is 2D, nor is it because the textures are better, but I think it is because you get to see more movement, ambient lighting, and more realism put into the units and buildings. The effects when damage is dealt, the death animations, the weapon fire, down to the unit portraits.

Variety with Balance:
While the first game had a lot of balance, the only real variety was in the races, and the way the races played. In SCII, the units seem to have more specific abilities and roles, while still keeping a strong sense of balance that the first game had. I think it is better in SCII because it really depends on what your force consists of, because almost every unit now has a specific counter unit for each race.

Map Editor:
Do I need to say anything...?

More to come.

[Waspman]

StarCraft 2 actually has a lot of little improvements over the first game, that no one really notices and care to think about. Stuff like unit pathing - like in StarCraft 1 if you click all the way across the map often times ground units won't make it there, get stuck on cliffs or with some units like Dragoons get stuck on ramps. It's not necessarily the game itself, just the fact that StarCraft 2 uses a new game engine compared to StarCraft 1, which is considered an old game and back then scripting for units and such were generally inferior, if that makes any sense. Plus there's other stuff too like auto-casting.
I do like the unit counters.. some games almost feel like a Chess match, like my opponent and I would keep changing builds to counter eachother.
Personally what I like about the game is that it's very competitive, in fact it's considered an e-sport just like StarCraft 1, but I find it easy to get into with the Placement system so you aren't getting owned all the time. You sorta play with players of similar skill. If you suck, you'll play with other people who suck and trust me.. there's quite a few crappy players.

[Fayde]

Yeah, the unit paths were on my list. Or the fact that the units will move out of the way when you want to build a building in the same place. The Buildings in general are way better. The fact that you can hold shift and place multiples of the same building is awesome as well. I find this extremely useful when mass producing Pylons, Photon Cannons or Supply Depots.

Battlenet is another reason SCII is better imo. It's clean, easy to navigate, and informative about the games you're selecting. The auto-match system is also a huge plus. While I personally do not play against people yet, it is a really nice way to just get started.

Interface:
I am the last person on earth who would say a user-friendly interface is better just because it's easy. Easy means simple, and simple means limited. However, the interface is WAY more user-friendly, without cutting any content or control. If anything, it adds a lot more control, and information. I like how it (much like WCIII) will tell you exactly what the unit does. A step further is stating what exactly the unit is strong against, or weak against. In the first game, you as the player would be left to figure out what does good against what.

Bonuses and Counters:
I think the new game does a much better job implementing individual unit bonuses (like +10 vs Armor), and unit counter actions. The first game seemed to be pretty minor when giving bonuses. You'd get like, a +1 bonus hit vs a certain type of unit, which in the long run means pretty much nothing. It seems like in SCII, it actually matters what kinds of units you build when compared to what you're facing. I played a game today (I was Toss, vs Terran), and they had siege tanks all over me, and I had a pretty small defensive force and got my butt kicked. I then build ONE Immortal and totally ripped the attacking Terrain force a new one, just because of the Immortals shields and it's bonus vs armored units. In the old game, I would have been toast, no matter what I built (I didn't have air units yet).

Terrain:
I love how the terrain is a bit more interactive, with the destructible boulders, the gold Minerals, the vision Obelisks, and the vegetation are all awesome new features that the old game couldn't offer (of course because of it's age).

There ARE some things I really still don't like though:

The interface is huge. Holy crap it's huge. It really doesn't have to be that big. Maybe a option for minimal and normal sized interfaces. I'd like to see more than half the screen when I am playing.

The cursor is camouflaged!!!! It's designed to look more like the race you're playing with it seems, but it gets annoying when you have a mass of units piling your screen and your cursor vanishes. I honestly think they could have kept the old green cursor. It would have been nostalgic anyway.

The soundtrack is annoying. I've yet to be at all impressed with it, and I've ended up putting my Mechwarrior soundtrack on while I play it. This is what I had to do with the first game and it's annoying soundtrack as well. While I don't mind, Mechwarrior's OST is awesome and brings a feel to the game that would otherwise be lost for me, I think they could have done a lot better with the soundtrack. Not to sound like a raging fan boy, but SoaSE has an AMAZING soundtrack that I listen on it's own constantly. And Ironclad is pretty much independent, and had no money. It made you feel like you were part of this massive space opera, fighting across the universe for glory, power and massive epic. SCII OST sounds like only the left speaker works and the rest of the music is on the right speaker that you can't hear.

[Fayde]

This makes me want to stop playing SC... Stupid Koreans and their StarCraft superiority.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbpCLqryN-Q
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ognc_ABKrKw

And then there are Americans...:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8H0jlbm-q0

[Waspman]

It always baffled me how much a phenomenon StarCraft became in South Korea. When you could turn on the TV (seriously) and watch guys in tracksuits play a 12 year old PC game in a stadium.

I lol'd so hard at that "American" video. Not to say that I'm great but I've seen some bad players.. but hahaha oh wow, that takes the cake. I love how he walls off with Nexuses.
Anyway, here's some units I messed around with:
www.mediafire.com/?njyznigntrwzmgx
Just click "Return to Game" when you get the game over screen.

[Waspman]

Here's some channels if you want to watch StarCraft 2 games:
www.youtube.com/user/HuskyStarcraft
www.youtube.com/user/HDstarcraft
day9tv.blip.tv/ (long, in depth commentary)
www.youtube.com/user/sc2tutorial
The last one has strategies and build orders worth checking out, including the Nydus worm bust I got attacked with.

Some HDstarcraft/HuskyStarCraft tutorials:
StarCraft 2 Tutorial - An Introduction to RTS - pt 1/2 (Super, super basic)
StarCraft 2 Tutorial - An Introduction to RTS - pt 2/2 (Super, super basic)
BASIC HOTKEY TUTORIAL STARCRAFT 2 - P1
BASIC HOTKEY TUTORIAL STARCRAFT 2 - P2
Zerg Tutorial - Basic Roach Opener - StarCraft 2
[HD] Protoss Tutorial - Basic Opener - StarCraft 2
Terran Tutorials: Executing the 1/1/1 Build vs Protoss p1/2
Terran Tutorials: Executing the 1/1/1 Build vs Protoss p2/2
Protoss Tutorials: Exploiting The 4 Gate Timing Attack
Fast Expand Zerg vs Protoss
Watching videos like these have actually helped my game a lot.

[Waspman]

Of course it always depends on what the opponent is doing, but what I usually open with is:
Build probes until 9
Build Pylon at choke
Build 10th Probe
Chrono Boost 2 more probes when Pylon is finished
Build Gateway at choke, basically making a wall with a little opening for my units to pass through
Then continue making/Chrono Boosting probes (never queue up more than 2 but if you queue up 2, use Chrono Boost. For a base to be fully saturated you seriously need 3 Probes on each gas and like 22~ on minerals), making a second pylon and a cybernetics core
Build zealots once Gateway is done, never queuing zealots
Build Assimilator, put 3 Probes on Gas
Research and Chrono Boost Warp Gate on the Cybernetics Core ASAP
Build more Zealots/Sentries/Stalkers while your Warp Gate technology is researching because it will take awhile.
Then build several more Gateways, another Assimilator and a Robo Bay. I usually end up with 4-5 Gateways and 1-2 Robo Bays and either build an Observer to scout with first, or possibly a couple of Immortals.
At this point, I sometimes build a Twilight Council and research/Chrono Boost Zealot Charge and Blink but like I said it depends on what the opponent is doing. Which is why it's always good to scout. I usually scout with the Probe I built the first Gateway with and then scout later with either a Zealot or my observer.

[Fayde]

Thanks for the links!! I found Toss opener very useful. I'll have to practice ^_^
I'll look into the other races as well, especially Zerg. I insist on knowing how to play them better.
Again, thanks for those links!

[Waspman]

Cool, I hope they helped. We should play again some time, also I can't wait for Justin to start playing because I need more StarCraft buddies. I is lonely. =(
I am worried that Justin's PC is going to struggle running it but we'll see. Low does look terribad though because it has like no shadows.. hopefully he'll be able to run it on Medium at least.
www.tomshardware.com/reviews/blizzard-entertainment-starcraft-ii-benchmark,2611-2.html