[PC] StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm out!

[leo8877]

JULY 27TH!!!

Huzzah!

[greeneggsnham]

here's a video of Terrans vs Protoss.

This is a very cool match... as always, a lot of replays are crap but this was really worth watching.

[Daehawk]

i GUESS I'M IN THE BETA NOW. i WASN'T BOTHERING BUT WHILE IN gAMESTOP TODAY WE GOT TO TALKING AND THEY FOUND OUT i PRE PURCHASED THE cOLLECTOR'S eDITION OF THE GAME AND HAD NOT GOT A BETA KEY...SO THEY GAVE ME ONE.........whoops caps lock was on sorry....anyways i might as well try it I guess. I know I'll suck ass.

If anyone wants to do some 2 v 2 from here or maybe some 2 v cpus then yell at me. I'm a bad mp player because I like to turtle and tech up so I suck at rushing.

[CeeKay]

JULY 27TH!!!

Huzzah!

 

[PaulBot]

Been playing the beta about a week now and having a blast! You can jump right in if you know SC, but there are new units to play with and the graphics are GORGEOUS!

[Daehawk]

here's a video of Terrans vs Protoss.

This is a very cool match... as always, a lot of replays are crap but this was really worth watching.

Not really my type of video for a play through. Its jumping too much back and forth and seems to be using the player's views. I prefer the ones where they use the observer camera and mostly check the bases and then any battles while they talk. But they do it slower. The back and forth fast views kinda make me dizzy Good quality though so will try to watch it all.

EDIT: Watched it all. Turned out great no matter what I said before Great game. Always good to see the humans going at it. That guy did a great job. And he is in the finals by playing random race. think the only one to do it.

[CeeKay]

Been playing the beta about a week now and having a blast! You can jump right in if you know SC, but there are new units to play with and the graphics are GORGEOUS!

good to hear 

[PR_GMR]

JULY 27TH!!!

Huzzah!

PUTTING! PRE-ORDER!

TAKING! DAY! OFF!

[CeeKay]

JULY 27TH!!!

Huzzah!

PUTTING! PRE-ORDER!

TAKING! DAY! OFF!

 

[CeeKay]

a bit on their pricing plan. 

[edit] I'm sure the prices are equivalent to what we pay in the US but the amounts make me LOL.

[Blackjack]

I haven't played SC in so long, were we able to pause and give orders in the Single Player campaign? That's the one thing I'd like to know about SC2. If there's no pause 'n orders option for Single Player, I'll skip it. The lack of that ruined some promising RTSs for me, including Act of War: Direct Action.

[Daehawk]

I'm replaying Starcraft right now. I got the whole Broodwar package free through Battle.net since I own the original game. I find it lacks a bunch of features we have gotten used to since it's release. Nothing major. As far as I can tell there are no pause orders. Still its a fun game. I was never a huge fan.Still aint. I find it ok for what it is and it's fun...thats all that matters. I'm a much bigger Diablo fan. But I have pre ordered the Collector's Edition of SC2.

Does the beta have co-op 2 vs cpus? If so I'd be up for a game or two anytime if someone wants. I don't like playing deathmatch and I REALLY HATE playing online pvp in SC2 due to me being awful at it and everyone else being so great at it. I could almost swear that if I log into a MP game then I've connected to some Korean cyber cafe running a tournament for it..I'm that bad.

[CeeKay]

Pausing in a RTS?  Wimp 

[Blackjack]

Pausing in a RTS?  Wimp 

Proud of it. Maybe RTS-makers gradually removing the feature contributed to the genre's withdrawal from the top of the charts.

[Thin_J]

Pausing in a RTS?  Wimp  

Proud of it. Maybe RTS-makers gradually removing the feature contributed to the genre's withdrawal from the top of the charts.

When was that ever a common feature for RTS games?

I'm a bit of an RTS nut. I have everything from Dune 2 and Warcraft: Orcs & Humans to the first C&C (and all its sequels up to the latest one, which I skipped) to Rise of Nations (And Legends) and Supreme Commander, and I'm having a terrible time thinking of even one that allowed issuing orders while paused. Rise of Legends might have. I can't remember. Maybe Age of Empires?

If any of them had that feature I don't know anybody that really used it, especially since it obviously didn't ever work in multiplayer.

I'd say it makes far more sense to relate the slow decline of the RTS genre directly to the massive success of consoles and the FPS genre. If everybody's buying the FPS games there's only so much money to go around for everything else. Something has to be on the losing end.

[KePoW]

Pausing in a RTS?  Wimp 

Proud of it. Maybe RTS-makers gradually removing the feature contributed to the genre's withdrawal from the top of the charts.

Thin_J's post is spot on.

Pause and give orders has never been a standard feature in the genre, so I have no idea why you are implying that.  You do know what the R and T stand for in 'RTS' right?

[SuperHiro]

Hey if anyone has a spare beta key I'd be much obliged.

[PaulBot]

Pre order at Amazon or GameStop and get a key.

[CeeKay]

I think the beta is ending soon too.  the 17th IIRC.

[PaulBot]

I think the beta is ending soon too.  the 17th IIRC.

I saw that when I preordered from Amazon, but I didn't know if they meant the beta ended, or that's when you could no longer get the beta through them.

Did you see that date somewhere else?

[Thin_J]

I saw that when I preordered from Amazon, but I didn't know if they meant the beta ended, or that's when you could no longer get the beta through them.

Did you see that date somewhere else?

Blizzard hasn't given an end date yet. The question's been asked on the battle.net forums and the answer last time was there's still plenty of testing to do. They still have 3v3, 4v4, and all that good stuff to add to the matchmaking setup, and there's plenty more balance work to still be done. They've already talked about changes planned for the Ultralisk beyond the damage buff from patch 11, and there were none in patch 12. The 17th is tomorrow and they're still considering major unit changes based on how ladder play is working out in the beta.

I'd be surprised if it didn't run well into June.

[PaulBot]

I'd be surprised if it didn't run well into June.

I'm betting the beta will still work for us who used Amazon/Gamestop to get in because when I look on Battle.net it shows "Expiry: Active until beta closes" for SC2.

[Daehawk]

Ive been in beta a while and played a total of 2 games. One I won easily. Both of these were the noob section match-ups. The second one was just a min ago. We were both Protoss. About 6 min in I have 3 zealots ready and think I'm going to go crush the other guy's gatherers. Right as I grab my 3 attackers I get hit with 8 flying ships and like 12 soldiers of some type. Needless to say both my bases were gone. WTH. How does someone do that??

[CeeKay]

I think the beta is ending soon too.  the 17th IIRC.

I saw that when I preordered from Amazon, but I didn't know if they meant the beta ended, or that's when you could no longer get the beta through them.

Did you see that date somewhere else?

I remember someone mentioning it somewhere but it's never been confirmed.

[jersoc]

Ive been in beta a while and played a total of 2 games. One I won easily. Both of these were the noob section match-ups. The second one was just a min ago. We were both Protoss. About 6 min in I have 3 zealots ready and think I'm going to go crush the other guy's gatherers. Right as I grab my 3 attackers I get his with 8 flying ships and like 12 soldiers of some type. Needless to say both my bases were gone. WTH. How does someone do that??

this is why i don't play the beta, or any of these games online. It's no fun getting destroyed within 10 minutes. I just don't have the dedication to sit and watch replays to learn. SP is all I care about. I want the story.

[denoginizer]

Ive been in beta a while and played a total of 2 games. One I won easily. Both of these were the noob section match-ups. The second one was just a min ago. We were both Protoss. About 6 min in I have 3 zealots ready and think I'm going to go crush the other guy's gatherers. Right as I grab my 3 attackers I get his with 8 flying ships and like 12 soldiers of some type. Needless to say both my bases were gone. WTH. How does someone do that??

You went for a second base 6 minutes in with only 3 Zealots built?

[Thin_J]

Ive been in beta a while and played a total of 2 games. One I won easily. Both of these were the noob section match-ups. The second one was just a min ago. We were both Protoss. About 6 min in I have 3 zealots ready and think I'm going to go crush the other guy's gatherers. Right as I grab my 3 attackers I get his with 8 flying ships and like 12 soldiers of some type. Needless to say both my bases were gone. WTH. How does someone do that??

You went for a second base 6 minutes in with only 3 Zealots built?

That caught my eye too. That early of an expansion against another Protoss is kind of an all-in strat unless you've scouted your opponent out and know exactly what he's doing.

[Thin_J]

So, partially right, partially wrong on the beta time period:

We'd like to let all of our StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty beta test participants know that the first phase of the beta test will be coming to an end in all regions on Monday, May 31. The beta test will be unavailable for several weeks while we make some hardware and software configuration changes in preparation for the final phase of the beta test and the release of the game. We plan to bring the beta test back online for a couple of weeks prior to the game's launch to complete our testing.

[Daehawk]

Ive been in beta a while and played a total of 2 games. One I won easily. Both of these were the noob section match-ups. The second one was just a min ago. We were both Protoss. About 6 min in I have 3 zealots ready and think I'm going to go crush the other guy's gatherers. Right as I grab my 3 attackers I get his with 8 flying ships and like 12 soldiers of some type. Needless to say both my bases were gone. WTH. How does someone do that??

You went for a second base 6 minutes in with only 3 Zealots built?

That caught my eye too. That early of an expansion against another Protoss is kind of an all-in strat unless you've scouted your opponent out and know exactly what he's doing.

He had one too. I scouted it. Just a city center. But like I said I suck and don't know what I'm doing anyways. I don't care for all the build so and so when and such kinda play. Thats why I'll just stick to single player and against the cpu with friends.

[CeeKay]

So, partially right, partially wrong on the beta time period:

We'd like to let all of our StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty beta test participants know that the first phase of the beta test will be coming to an end in all regions on Monday, May 31. The beta test will be unavailable for several weeks while we make some hardware and software configuration changes in preparation for the final phase of the beta test and the release of the game. We plan to bring the beta test back online for a couple of weeks prior to the game's launch to complete our testing.

so it's mostly over after the 31st.

[CeeKay]

blood, smoking and vulgar language removed from the South Korean version to avoid an adult only rating.

[Turtle]

I have a lot more respect for the Korean game ratings board now.

I hope in the future the AO rating becomes less of a big deal.

[CeeKay]

they've extended the current phase of the beta through June 7th.

[ras752000]

Pausing in a RTS?  Wimp  

Proud of it. Maybe RTS-makers gradually removing the feature contributed to the genre's withdrawal from the top of the charts.

When was that ever a common feature for RTS games?

didn't myth allow for paused orders in a real time framework?
Been so long, hard to remember

[CeeKay]

a bit on balancing the game.

[Blackjack]

Pausing in a RTS?  Wimp  

Proud of it. Maybe RTS-makers gradually removing the feature contributed to the genre's withdrawal from the top of the charts.

When was that ever a common feature for RTS games?

didn't myth allow for paused orders in a real time framework?
Been so long, hard to remember

I don't quite remember either (I do remember getting awesome screenshots when it's paused), but Myth wasn't a base-building, control hundreds of units at a time type RTS. That's what I loved about Myth (it being different, smaller scale), but it wasn't the rage at the time of its brief heyday.

I still feel there's only three ways fans will respond to SC2:
-It's too much like Starcraft
-It's too different from Starcraft
-It isn't as good as Starcraft
I await the verdict eagerly...

[CeeKay]

you can also embed videos in maps.

[baelthazar]

Does anyone know if I pre-order through Amazon, if I still get into beta?

I was thinking about doing that now... or is it just the CE?

[jersoc]

beta is over in 3 days.

[baelthazar]

beta is over in 3 days.

Doh! I read July 7th instead of JUNE! Thanks!