Happy StarCraft 2 Day

[Kermit]

Let the patching begin.

[Creole Ned]

I shall celebrate by watching the YouTube video of all the CGI custscenes that someone will probably already have put together.

[Tai]

I will not be buying/playing this :)

[Paladin]

Me neither.

I still haven't finished the original. I doubt I ever will at this point.

[Creole Ned]

I fell off the RTS bandwagon sometime after Age of Empires 2 and it was only with the nudging of Q that I tried Company of Heroes. I like its slower pace, fewer units and less emphasis on building and micromanagement. It's like an old guy's RTS. Starcraft 2 will no doubt be a fine game but it doesn't seem like an old guy's RTS to me.

[samuelk]

So far, first impressions are that the game is pretty much Starcraft, in 3D.

I remember very little about the original game, so I can't comment on the little RTS details, but it feels pretty much the same.

One nice thing is the quasi-interactive pre-mission scenes that remind me a lot of the stuff in games like Wing Commander, where before a mission, you're presented with a view shot of a ship's bridge, or an old bar where your character is sitting. You can move the mouse around the screen and highlight various interactive objects such as photographs, a jukebox (to change songs) or other characters. Clicking on the objects starts mini-cutscenes, TV-news reports or spoken dialog from characters. There's even a 3D Galaga-style arcade game that you can play, and it's quite polished for being a game-in-a-game. Occasionally, clicking on an object will change the camera angle to zoom in on a character or object. It's a nice touch, and feels like a new 3D take on some old-school game design.

The one thing that's frustrating about games like Starcraft is that -- keeping in mind that I've only played through less than 10 missions -- the end of every mission feels like a step backwards. You spend a mission building up resources, troops and technology, and when you start the next mission, you're back to square one.

Starcraft II, so far, has crafted the missions so that this regression is somewhat explained by the story (for example, some missions end with you having to leave your base because it is being overrun by enemy forces), but I'm not sure they'll be able to maintain that believability throughout the single-player campaign. Plus, having the base overrun with enemy forces over and over again as a scripted plot point sort of defeats the purpose of actually winning an RTS game.

Speaking of scripted sequences, Starcraft II seems to have more scripted action than previous games (though again, I haven't played the original in so long, I may have forgotten too much for a valid comparison).

That's my first impression having only been through a smidgen of the single-player campaign and no taste of multiplayer.

The game is focused a LOT on resources and micromanagement, so it's definitely not Company of Heroes. :)

[Creole Ned]

Thanks for the impressions, Sam. The interactive bits before missions sound like an interesting wrinkle. I've seen other comments to the effect that the story in Starcraft 2 is told well but it's not actually a great (or good) story.

I don't feel I'm missing out on too much here.

[Paladin]

One thing I disliked about the original was that you only got 10 missions for each side, and therefore the ramp up from mission to mission was pretty steep. By the end of the 9th mission, it seemed like you had barely any practice and then the 10th mission would be a killer. I made it to the very last Protoss mission... the game finale... by cheating my ass off, but no amount of cheats gave me enough of an advantage to offset having to keep two bases and a mission critical NPC alive. I'd get frustrated and quit playing. Now, I'd have to come back and relearn everything again to take another stab at finishing. I did that once, to finally finish the 10th human mission and move on to the other campaigns. Now, I just don't see myself going back and relearning everything again.

[Creole Ned]

It's interesting that you mention that. I remember making it to the 11th (I think) mission in Warcraft 2 and the computer suddenly got access to what seemed to be this near-invincible dragon type of unit. The difficulty level just shot through the roof and I gave up, never finishing the game.

I sometimes think about going back to try to finish it but I know the chances are pretty close to nil.

[armerius]

First time I played through Starcraft: Brood War, I cheated my ass off on the final mission.. it seemed impossible. Having been a starcraft lover since it first came out, I replayed both the original game and Brood War a year ago when I heard about Starcraft 2 so I could enjoy the story again (it really is fantastic) and found the campaigns to be hugely easier the second time around, including that final Brood War mission, and completed them all without cheating.

I've been looking forward to 2 since it was announced and played the beta for a good 2 months online... great classic starcraft gameplay and I cannot wait to get home from Miami and start putting the release version through its paces. are ANY martians going to be on Battle.net?

[Kermit]

Still patching.

I kid. We're swamped at work and I'm trying to get together with some of my buddies to play D&DO once a week. Once the slaughter around here ends I will pick up SC2.

[Orion]

DDo has been a treat. specially cause its free and some of the old crew are playing again.

As far as RTS goes, its always been my forte. I intend to pick the game up soon. I'll only play multi with friends, and in co-op mode only. Look me up to play some.

[Admiral]

I'm considering getting it, as I enjoyed the original. My only issue will be finding playing time!

[armerius]

anyone know where your "player code" is so we can exchange names on friend lists?

[Tai]

click add friend, it will show your id there. You can also hover over your portrait *maybe*.

[Iceman]

I never had any of these difficulties you guys seem to have had in Starcraft.

I played through the campaigns on normal, and after gettting overrun early in the games I learned how to build up a force quickly to defend, while also expanding to keep pumping out units constantly.
I do remember winning a lot of the missions by winning a war of attrition with the computer: Letting it mine out it's bases and get slaughtered by my turtled defenses, and waltzing to the mission objective, but killing all their buildings for good measure.

I also play SCII on Hard difficulty and have completed 20 someodd missions thus far.

[armerius]

I found Hard difficulty pretty pounding in SCII so far... i'll be going back to try it soon enough.

[Iceman]

Armerius, I'm not quite sure what part of it is giving you difficulty. It sounds like you might not be Macroing hard enough. I have never seen a mission where you need to fast-expand (save for one of the challenges.) But you definitely want to be building SCVs whenever you have a spare few minerals, until you have 3 per mineral patch. Also be sure to put down enough factories or barracks to support the build you're doing. Additionally, when you have the option for an orbital command get it as soon as possible, every 50 energy is the potential for a free 300 minerals.

Additionally, if you're still having difficulty you could be going about doing the mission incorrectly. I find the game explains how to do the mission rather bluntly, and in retrospect all of the times that I was having difficulty, I wasn't using the recommended units or was dismissing the game's advice.

If you're still having difficulty you can save a replay and send it to me and I can critique what I think you're doing wrong.

[armerius]

thanks for the advice, iceman. i'm on the last 4 missions now (the secret mission was great fun). still playing on normal and doing it to get the achievements. I'll go it on hard for the other achievements after this time through.