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

[lex]

I played a few missions and so far so good.  There's nothing else really to say, it's Starcraft, if you like the series, you'll like this expansion.

But I will say that Blizzard has raised the bar again with their cinematics.  Damn, they look goooood.

[PR_GMR]

Just spotted the CE here at Best Buy. That is one sweeeet CE box!

[msduncan]

Displeasure:     Buying the box copy of the game, getting it home, and realizing that there is nothing on the damned disc and you STILL have to download 5.6 GB of data on your crappy DSL line.     

[greeneggsnham]

It's going to be like wings of liberty, but instead you play as the Zerg and there will be new units.

If that's all it is then I am so IN. Just don't know why it takes 2.5 years to make that.

It takes that long to render all the CG.

[msduncan]

I am also struggling to figure out why it took 2.5 years to get this out.    I'm playing with it 25% downloaded, meaning that most of the content really didn't take long to download.    I'm reading that it's just 20 missions, which seems small.    WTF is here to take 2 years?

[hepcat]

Just had my first crash.  That's a new one.  SoL played flawlessly.  The error report indicated it may have been caused by out of date video drivers...except for the fact that I'm playing with the latest nvidia drivers available for my GTX 470.   

[Canuck]

It takes that long to suck up all the money in Korea. Seriously, the guys at Blizzard have got the sweetest gig going. Most of the work was probably done for the first game and now for 3 years they just come into work late in the morning and do the crossword puzzle all day and collect a paycheck.

[Turtle]

Yep, 20 missions, no choices, missions seem not as interesting as WoL either. Guess they're in pure milking mode.

CG movies are always nice, but good CG is so common nowadays, so many studios and games do it just as well as Blizzard. So now it all seems like padding.

[msduncan]

I'm going to say that a 20 mission expansion is not worth the money.    I paid for it, but I won't make the mistake on expansion 3.     I'm enjoying it, but my gaming dollars are precious.

[leo8877]

Didn't WoL only contain 26 missions?

[lex]

Didn't WoL only contain 26 missions?

Quality over quantity....

I'll make my final decision if it was worth it or not when I finish the campaign.  But since I don't touch multiplayer, I'm obviously not getting the most bang for my buck with the game because I won't be spending 100+ hours playing it.

I do notice that missions are taking longer to load up...

[Turtle]

By the way, for people who have played more, how was the mod community for Starcraft 2 so far?

The only significant mod I saw was that one early on where it was basically a MOBA with spaceships, and other high profile things like the MMO that had to change names.

[Caine]

had a couple of hours to kill this morning so I fired up Wings to continue the campaign.  got all set to play when the game started updating and then it said it needed to reconfigure the game files, which proceeded to kill about 90 minutes with what appeared to be a massive download

It's preloading about 6 gbs worth of HOTS data, even if you didn't pre-order it.  It did that for me too when I re-installed SC2 last week.  If you go into your SCII install directory\updates folder, there should be a folder with HotS somewhere.

they actually did this?  loaded an entire expansion on your pc even though you haven't bought it.  what a pain in the ass if all you want to do is go back and finish up the first one.  I was tempted to revisit it myself and finish up WoL, but between the huge patches which it will need to get plus this, I'm going to spend my gaming time 'playing something', not watching a download bar inch across the screen slowly. 

[Victoria Raverna]

had a couple of hours to kill this morning so I fired up Wings to continue the campaign.  got all set to play when the game started updating and then it said it needed to reconfigure the game files, which proceeded to kill about 90 minutes with what appeared to be a massive download

It's preloading about 6 gbs worth of HOTS data, even if you didn't pre-order it.  It did that for me too when I re-installed SC2 last week.  If you go into your SCII install directory\updates folder, there should be a folder with HotS somewhere.

they actually did this?  loaded an entire expansion on your pc even though you haven't bought it.  what a pain in the ass if all you want to do is go back and finish up the first one.  I was tempted to revisit it myself and finish up WoL, but between the huge patches which it will need to get plus this, I'm going to spend my gaming time 'playing something', not watching a download bar inch across the screen slowly. 

I think you can start playing after "setup" phase is done and let the rest download in background.

[naednek]

I'm going to say that a 20 mission expansion is not worth the money.    I paid for it, but I won't make the mistake on expansion 3.     I'm enjoying it, but my gaming dollars are precious.

it's not an expansion.   Don't know why people keep saying this...  20 missions is typically more missions you get in modern RTS games. 

[EddieA]

it's not an expansion.   Don't know why people keep saying this...

The fact that the box has "Expansion Set" written across the top may have something to do with that although that probably has more to do with the fact that Blizzard doesn't want people wondering why the game is $40 rather than the standard $50 or $60.

[Turtle]

Also, the story advancement is just a typical small revenge story, just with a lot of steps to it.

[msduncan]

Actually I stand corrected.   After playing some hours last night, there is more depth than I originally thought.    I'm enjoying it so far.   

I still don't like the protos though, so the next expansion will be a hard sell for me.

[msduncan]

I'm going to say that a 20 mission expansion is not worth the money.    I paid for it, but I won't make the mistake on expansion 3.     I'm enjoying it, but my gaming dollars are precious.

it's not an expansion.   Don't know why people keep saying this...  20 missions is typically more missions you get in modern RTS games. 

Probably because Blizzard is calling it an expansion.    Please see the photo of the box below:



Please note the words "Expansion Set" along the top.

[Turtle]

Also, no mini campaign either.

[Ridah]

I'm going to post my impressions on the front page but so far I'm feeling mixed. Having a hero character is fun, but otherwise the game feels somewhat antiquated. I'm definitely not feeling the magic like I did in WoL. It's also pretty shocking how almost no one is talking about this game... as far as I can tell none of my friends who bought WoL bought this.

[Knightshade Dragon]

I'm going to post my impressions on the front page but so far I'm feeling mixed. Having a hero character is fun, but otherwise the game feels somewhat antiquated. I'm definitely not feeling the magic like I did in WoL. It's also pretty shocking how almost no one is talking about this game... as far as I can tell none of my friends who bought WoL bought this.

I'm actually having the opposite experience.  I'm only a few levels in, but I'm enjoying having a bit more focus this time around.   

[Ridah]

I'm going to post my impressions on the front page but so far I'm feeling mixed. Having a hero character is fun, but otherwise the game feels somewhat antiquated. I'm definitely not feeling the magic like I did in WoL. It's also pretty shocking how almost no one is talking about this game... as far as I can tell none of my friends who bought WoL bought this.

I'm actually having the opposite experience.  I'm only a few levels in, but I'm enjoying having a bit more focus this time around.   

It's not so much the mission structure itself, I'm enjoying that for the most part. It's just the feel of the game, the user experience...

[CeeKay]

there's a definite lack of 'OMG YOU MUST GET THIS' out there.

[wonderpug]

How are the new units?

[leo8877]

there's a definite lack of 'OMG YOU MUST GET THIS' out there.

Too busy with Tomb Raider and God of War

[Roguetad]

WoL helped me realize that I'm no longer a fan of the old school, base and unit building RTS formula, complete with build orders and unit spamming.  That level of micro feels like work to me.  Starcraft 2 does the old school RTS formula well, it's just not for me anymore.  I played through WoL because I wanted to see what happened, not because I was really enjoying the RTS experience.

[Knightshade Dragon]

Guess I'm still a dirt farmer at heart - I'm enjoying the micro.  In the single player you'll get odd mutations like Zerglings that can jump over obstacles and cliffs, Roaches that can move while burrowed, Roaches that can spawn two Roachlings from the bodies of their enemies, etc.  I had one mission with over 200 zerglings fielded with a crew of Mutalisks and souped up Hydralisks.   The storyline has me hooked.  It's simple, but I'm enjoying it. 

[USMC Kato]

While I enjoyed WoL for its story, I was a bit turned off by its old school mechanics. I'm more into Dawn of War, Company of heroes type of RTS.

[leo8877]

I also like the DoW gameplay better, but I do love me some StarCraft story!  I'll get to this eventually.

[MonkeyFinger]

WoL helped me realize that I'm no longer a fan of the old school, base and unit building RTS formula, complete with build orders and unit spamming.  That level of micro feels like work to me.  Starcraft 2 does the old school RTS formula well, it's just not for me anymore.  I played through WoL because I wanted to see what happened, not because I was really enjoying the RTS experience.

I seem to have fallen into this same camp. Picked up a copy of WoL when it came out and pre-ordered this many moons ago. Never really clicked again with the game and cancelled my pre-order some time ago. Maybe the eventual uber-sale but for now I'm fine with being StarCraft-free. 

[lex]

Just finished the SP campaign.  Took me maybe about 15 hours, and I thought it was pretty amazing.  I would say the first half of the game was a little bit boring, but they ramp it up for the second half.  Some of the mission types were definitely not expected.

Although SCII is still about base building and micromanagement, I would say they've automated or streamlined a lot of it so that you don't have to micromanage as much if you don't want to.  I found red alert 3 to be too much for me to handle, but SCII was OK.

[leo8877]

Finally got around to buying this and the game is amazing.  I'm enjoying everything they've done so far.

[leo8877]

Finished this weekend and loved the game.  I thought that it had more content for an expansion than most "full" games.  Can't wait to see the Protoss version now.   The thing I liked the most had to be the F2 for whole army button.  I hated having to always micro manage my armies and add them to control groups.  I would much rather just lump them all together and pew pew.  It's even made me go back and play some WoL with a fresh perspective.