Well, apparently the beta is back. Not sure yet. Wouldn't surprise me though since they updated a ton of things.

I'm downloading a 400mb download right now.

"Battle.net is down for maintenance."

:meh:

Ok, it's officially back now.

I'm going to check out what they added in.

Here are the http://www.curse.com/blogs/sc2-en-news/archive/2010/07/07/starcraft-ii-beta-patch-notes-patch-16.aspx

Better A.I.?! I'm excited to see what it can do!

So I tried logging into battle.net this morning, and I was surprised to see some interesting portraits: Nova? Tassadar? The Overmind? Hybrid units?! IM STOKED.

I thought perhaps I could open up the archived files and get a better look in the galaxy editor's previewer but they weren't there. However, I did find these new critters.

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a328/Mikeandike1/Critters.jpg

I threw in some hydralisks just to give a rough scale comparison.

So only a week away!

Can't wait to pick up the CE.

This game is more popular in South Korea than Football is here or Soccer in Europe. Well, the original Starcraft is.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=email_us&refer=asia&sid=a2JvzciDnpB4

I read somewhere that these guys can do hundreds of moves in minute. I have not played StarCraft as I am still playing through Command and Conquer Decade so I do not know the details of the game play. But that seems like it would be impossible for someone who does not spend hours a day practicing to do. Maybe I even read it wrong, maybe it was hundreds of something else.

Anyway, has anyone heard if the South Korean fans are as taken with this game as the original?

From what I've heard the matchmaking system is decent, if your bad you'll be matched against other people who are bad. Also the game play is by region so if your from North America or Europe you aren't going to be playing against people from South Korea.

I pre-ordered because some of the stuff you can do with the mod editor is crazy and Blizzard usually makes good stuff.


http://www.sc2mapster.com/announcements/battle-bot-metal-slug-next-tutorial-sprite/
http://www.sc2mapster.com/announcements/red-revenge-ac130k-vivi-3d-razer/

I was so mad when I went to launch the beta last night and the servers were down, but then realizing how close it is to launch, I smiled.

With Wine 1.2, it runs perfectly for me on Ultra settings. One week until Thor is He~ah

Yes, the pros can get from 200-300 APM. (Actions per minute) It's insane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbpCLqryN-Q

But like Deacon said, the multiplayer is broken up into 5 leagues. Bronze being the lowest, diamond the highest. So you get matched up to other players of your skill easily.

Also, APM doesn't start to be a good predictor of performance until quite high levels of play. I average about 50-60 APM in most of my games, and I spent the beta bouncing back and forth between the second and third highest leagues (platinum and gold using the current system). At the level where most of us are likely to play, skill is much more about not forgetting to do stuff (build workers, use your activated econ abilities, build units, scout) and knowing what's good against what than it is about perfect multitasking. I wouldn't know what to do with 200 APM if I had that kind of attentional control and finger speed.

I don't think the Korean pro leagues have picked up SC2 yet, but a lot of the Korean pros have been playing it casually and getting in on the tournaments that have been hosted. In http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=136294 that's going on right now, I believe IntoTheRainbow and Tester are both Korean, and IdrA is an American ex-pat living in Korea as a pro gamer.

ive never even really heard of starcraft until lately, i saw the SC2 trailer on TV today and thought it looked pretty good, so basically my question is whats the basic story to the game and is it worth getting?

The basic story of the first game (trying to avoid spoilers) was something along the lines of:

Space-faring humans have developed a frontier-like society in a system of colony worlds after their exodus from Earth. The society is mostly ruled by a rather unpleasant state called the Terran Confederacy. Near the beginning of the game, three additional factions emerge:

-A human separatist group called the Sons of Korhal, which starts a civil war against the Confederacy
-An alien race called the Zerg who are a kind of swarm/hive mind intelligence
-A second alien race called the Protoss, whose motives are a bit obscure but seem to have something to do with eradicating the Zerg, apparently at any cost

You command the armies of all three of these factions in a series of three 10-mission campaigns (one as Terrans, one as Zerg, one as Protoss) that play out the resulting 4-way (eventually more, as sub-factions arise) war.

Then there was an expansion pack called Brood War, whose plot I can't really say much about without spoiling a lot of the first game. The part of SC2 that's being released soon is going to be the Terran portion of the follow-up to Brood War. It's going to follow some of the important characters from the original Terran campaign, along with presumably some new characters, in a plot that seems to revolve around an important servant of the Zerg who featured prominently in SC1 and Brood War.

-----

As to whether it's worth getting, SC1 is pretty widely recognized as the best real-time strategy of all time. I've been in the beta of SC2 for a couple months, and I like it better than SC1. It plays like a dream. I love it.

That said, have you played any RTS games? If so, you should have a good idea of whether you like them or not; I can attest that SC2 is a good RTS, but if you only like RPGs, you're probably not going to enjoy it.

And finally, since story seems to be a deciding factor for you, I should say that I loved the plot of SC1 and Brood War, but obviously I don't know for sure if SC2's will be as good (only the multiplayer part, which has no plot, was available in the Beta).

thanks cleared up alot of questions i had, and yeah i love RTS's, im a huge fan of the Command and Conquer series, so if its anything remotely similar to that then ill love it, and also one more question, i couldnt find it on steam, so i dont really know the system requirements, right now i have an intel celeron running at 2.2Ghz, and my graphics card is medeocre.

Even though I have high APM, I agree with what your saying. I believe a high APM is a mix between micromanaging (whether it be scouting or harassing) and simple tasks. The funny part is that I was totally against micro'ing when I entered the beta. It was the reason I hated warcraft III...and it was the reason I thought I would never be playing starcraft.

But after practicing A LOT, I got more comfortable with it, until finally, i memorized all the new hotkeys, and camera functions, and was able to move around on the fly. This game is very habitual which I find a lot different that SC1. Like you said, you almost go through a checklist to make sure you do things at certain times, and if you don't do them, you know you may be at a disadvantage.

I need to work on my micro-managing. I am terrible.

I can't wait to see the custom content though.

Should we get a thread together to collect usernames for starcraft 2 in the forums here after launch?

Anyway, I love the game. Been playing the first one for 12 years, off and on of course. Managed to get into the beta and I'm quite good, even with only 60ish games under my belt I was still single digit platinum rank.

I'll make sure to come back and check for a thread, because I'm willing to help new players when I have the time.

I can sit down in a game with you and just spend 15 minutes and tell you most everything you need to know. I am also glad to do so. I play random, so don't think I'm focused on a race.


All that said, the game is daunting at first. Even if you have played rts games before. Sure, against easy players or the low ai settings you can just mope around and win everytime, but later in high ladder play if you miss a window by a few seconds, forget to do one thing for too long, ect ect ect (tons of small things) it can cost you the game.

Some things new players or even returning player should be looking for are streaming games and/or commentaries. I recommend the guy who runs "Shoutcraft" (google it) for anyone looking to learn more about the game.

The problem with adding people (at least on here) you need their email. Right? Unless they went back to using usernames and I never noticed. So we may just have to pm each other or something.

I would love it if you could help me out Vivec once the game is released that is.

I believe you can now add someone using their username + their "character code identifier," which is a string of numbers associated with your account.

In case someone hasn't seen the Ghosts of the Past trailer: http://us.starcraft2.com/dominion/.

Holy [censored]. At least Blizzard's cinematic team still has it :blink:

To those of you having trouble with micro:

Hotkey your main harvester/command center/nexus. I personally use 5 for that. Then, when you make your barracks or gateways, hotkey those to 4, and so on for new buildings. Don't forget that you can put multiple buildings on the same key, so you could have as many gateways or barracks or whatever you wanted on a hotkey as you wish.

Memorize the hotkey for units. It's much faster to hit 4, z z z z than to go all the way to your base, double click your structures, then click zealot zealot zealot zealot.

Set rally points for workers and for units, so that the units you need are there when you need them, and not standing behind a building.

As soon as new units come out, put them on a hotkey. Don't forget that if you shift + click a unit, it will add it to the currently selected group. You can also shift + double click or shift + box them into the group also, then make sure to re-hotkey them. This ensures as many units as you need are available when you need them.

Sweet. Mother. Of. God.

I have a very strong feeling that at the end of the Wings of Liberty campaign, I'm going to be very angry that Heart of the Swarm isn't out yet.

lol, on G4 (probably X-Play) i heard that the really good South Korean players actually live in a "dojo" made just to play StarCraft. I guess we know who will own the leaderboards on StarCraft 2

Oh my [censored] god.

Here I am, thinking I'm pretty good at this game, then I see this.

:sadvaultboy: I'm just a lowly grasshopper......

I thought it was hilarious when he signed the mousepad at the end.

A lot of times when I see people who are really good at something I think "It would be cool to be able to do that that well", here I'm not thinking that at all.