Starcraft II Beta Live!

[Anarchist Bunny]

http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/news/?d=2010-2#171100

Anyone who attempted to Opt In should check their e-mail accounts to see if you are a lucky lucky bastard.

As you can infer from my slightly exaggerated I have not made it in(yet at least), however they seem to be rolling out the invites rather that slamming their downloader(which appears to be a torrent) with a bunch of leechers. So here is hoping that an e-mail is on its way to me. Or that I get in one of the later waves of invites.

[adam_grif]

I didn't bother signing up, because no RTS has been able to scratch the itch left by Company of Heroes.

[General Zod]

Signed up months ago, still haven't gotten an invite. I'm not expecting anything but we'll see.

[Teleros]

Same as Zod. Not in America though, so I'm expecting a delay before Blizz gets around to telling us if we've won or not .

[Tanasinn]

If you didn't manage to get an invite, just use a sharpie to add "2" and "beta" to your Starcraft disc. I'm sure you'll never notice the difference.

[Alan Bolte]

A friend of mine has been watching streaming video of people playing the beta, and pointing out the highlights, such as this game displaying the new Zerg Banelings.

[Collossus]

wow I signed in so long ago..... and no I havent heard anythning yet. lets just hope with all the time they put in it will be the best thing since..... well the first SC.

[Collossus]

A friend of mine has been watching streaming video of people playing the beta, and pointing out the highlights, such as this game displaying the new Zerg Banelings.

That WAS EPIC!!

[DesertFly]

wow I signed in so long ago..... and no I havent heard anythning yet. lets just hope with all the time they put in it will be the best thing since..... well the first SC.

Please, it's going to be nothing more than Starcraft: Now with Prettier Graphics! Nothing I've seen in any of the screenshots, videos, or developer logs gives me hope that they're going to pay anything more than lip service to the last 13 years of RTS innovations.

There's not going to be any of Dawn of War's (or Company of Heroes') squad control or territory management for resources. There isn't going to be any territory push or attrition damage or automatic control group joining like the Rise of Nations series. There's not going to be the independent harvesters of Age of Empires 3. There won't even be the "All Units go here" of Halo Wars.

Nope, it's going to be exactly the same as Starcraft.

EDIT -- I'll probably still end up buying it, but only because that's what my friends and I will be LANing up for awhile.

[Serafina]

Why should they put any innovation into it?

People still play the old StarCraft, lot's of them propably care squat about the innovations of the last thirteen years, and many would claim that they would "ruin the gameplay".

Of course, things like strategic zoom, a good waypoint system, decent unit behaviour and similar things hardly change much about the gameplay and are still good innovations - but i bet we won't find much of them in the new StarCraft.

[DesertFly]

Gah! I knew I was missing one. I had completely forgotten about Supreme Commander and its advanced queuing and waypoint system. Thanks for reminding me

And that's the thing. The original Starcraft was a lot of fun, but it's hard to go back to it after playing some of those other ones.

[Collossus]

wow I signed in so long ago..... and no I havent heard anythning yet. lets just hope with all the time they put in it will be the best thing since..... well the first SC.

Please, it's going to be nothing more than Starcraft: Now with Prettier Graphics! Nothing I've seen in any of the screenshots, videos, or developer logs gives me hope that they're going to pay anything more than lip service to the last 13 years of RTS innovations.

There's not going to be any of Dawn of War's (or Company of Heroes') squad control or territory management for resources. There isn't going to be any territory push or attrition damage or automatic control group joining like the Rise of Nations series. There's not going to be the independent harvesters of Age of Empires 3. There won't even be the "All Units go here" of Halo Wars.

Nope, it's going to be exactly the same as Starcraft.

EDIT -- I'll probably still end up buying it, but only because that's what my friends and I will be LANing up for awhile.

yea but I think DOW II sucked compared to the original DOW. II has some nice skirmishes but that is about it they took out the massive armies and everything about the first that made it epic.... i dunno they might fix it in the future but i doubt it. as a side note since it played supreme commander nothing else stacks up to it terms of awe-inspiring moments. speaking of which 2 is coming in a couple of weeks!!!!! YEA!!!!!!!

[Teleros]

The thing with SC1 vs SC2 is... why do they need to innovate much? They had a winning formula in the first game, to the point where it's still very popular, and SC2 is intended to be an improvement on that. The lack of all the fancy modern stuff is probably one of the reasons why they're shipping such a ridiculously powerful map editor with the game - whilst SC2 may have its shortcomings in the default game, you can be sure that modding will keep it alive for a long time to come. Unlike what I think was meant to be its competitor, Red Alert 3, which will sink with barely a trace (thankyou EA ).

yea but I think DOW II sucked compared to the original DOW.

Definitely. Same problem with Red Alert 2 & 3, and I'm not sure about how C&C4 is shaping up either compared to TibSun & TibWars.

[ArmorPierce]

wow I signed in so long ago..... and no I havent heard anythning yet. lets just hope with all the time they put in it will be the best thing since..... well the first SC.

Please, it's going to be nothing more than Starcraft: Now with Prettier Graphics! Nothing I've seen in any of the screenshots, videos, or developer logs gives me hope that they're going to pay anything more than lip service to the last 13 years of RTS innovations.

There's not going to be any of Dawn of War's (or Company of Heroes') squad control or territory management for resources. There isn't going to be any territory push or attrition damage or automatic control group joining like the Rise of Nations series. There's not going to be the independent harvesters of Age of Empires 3. There won't even be the "All Units go here" of Halo Wars.

Nope, it's going to be exactly the same as Starcraft.

EDIT -- I'll probably still end up buying it, but only because that's what my friends and I will be LANing up for awhile.

I actually dislike most of that innovation. The more like the old school rts the better.

[Stark]

If the game lacks modern gameplay features, how is a MAP editor going to help? As said, this is going to be Starcraft: Korean Edition and it probably won't even displace SC from the retards who still play it.

[Teleros]

If the game lacks modern gameplay features, how is a MAP editor going to help?

Because you don't need all those modern gameplay features to make a really fun game. Take Supreme Commander's strategic zoom - it's great in that game, but would be rather pointless in a smaller scale game like Starcraft 2. It's also not very helpful if you've got units with their own unique abilities - you'll note that SupCom has nothing like the diverse special actions of SC2, just the usual rock-paper-scissors RTS units that SC2 has as well. If SC2 had almost no special unit abilities, and was on a larger scale, then yes I could see the strategic zoom being a useful feature.

As for the map editor... in case you haven't seen the BlizzCon details on the map editor, it is an extremely powerful tool (far more so that say the Warcraft 3 one), and quite aside from the editor, the game itself is almost certainly going to be easily modded anyway, knowing Blizzard. If you're really desperate for strategic zoom on maps you can probably mod it in, but my main point was that things like good map editors etc can greatly extend a game's life and popularity.

[Stark]

I thought when you said 'modding' you mean 'modding to make it not stone age' rather than 'endless symmetrical maps'.

That anyone declares 'zooming out a lot' useless in Starcraft really says a lot about RTS players. But hey, making RTS games easier to play = meaningless to people stupid enough to still play Starcraft. 'Old school' is nearly synonymous with 'clunky, manual, micro'. A Starcraft mod for WiC would at least have been interesting (but Blizzard doesn't really give a fuck about this game and is just milking a cash cow so nobody expects quality).

[Teleros]

That anyone declares 'zooming out a lot' useless in Starcraft really says a lot about RTS players.

Not really. Strategy games I've played and enjoyed go from the Homeworld series & Supreme Commander, where strategic zoom is a godsend, to Warcraft 3, which by comparison takes place on a small corner of a small SupCom map. Starcraft is just a smaller scale game than Homeworld etc, and doesn't require it as much. More, the fact that it there is a lot more micromanaging than in SupCom or Homeworld (although yes, they do still require some) means that zooming way out like that can in fact be a bad idea.

But hey, making RTS games easier to play = meaningless to people stupid enough to still play Starcraft.

I don't know much about how waypoints etc are being done in SC2, but with strategic zoom options I just don't think it's necessary to play & enjoy a game of that scale. When it comes to larger scale games, I absolutely agree that good zoom out options etc are a must-have. Starcraft 1 & 2... they're just not those games. Hell, it's not like the weapons in the game are even close to SupCom ranges either.

Sure, zooming out a long ways might come in handy sometimes. Just not often enough to warrant its inclusion. Different game, different formula for gameplay, different requirements.

[Stark]

You know 'strategic zoom' is a buzzword that refers to single-button movement to fullscreen, right?

Anyway, you don't 'include' the ability to zoom out; zoom distance is a cap. It's not about 'different game'; it's a clear indication that they're just replicating an ancient game for fanboys, because unless their engine sucks there's no reason to limit viewport zoom.

Getting a clear idea of battle should involve either squinting at totally useless minimaps or panning furiously, I guess. Good thing Blizzard has a market so easy to please.

[Teleros]

Have you not seen the battle reports? You hardly need to pan furiously to take in a battle during a game, unless you also count monitoring your base, building stuff, etc etc etc.

It's not about 'different game'; it's a clear indication that they're just replicating an ancient game for fanboys, because unless their engine sucks there's no reason to limit viewport zoom.

They've stated that you can zoom in on the action, I'd be surprised if there was not some way to also zoom out. Whether they'll make it a standard feature though is another matter - I know for example that Red Alert 2 deliberately limits your resolution to avoid giving players with smaller resolutions a disadvantage.
As for replicating the game, I don't think anyone's going to disagree there. Blizz are clearly sticking to the Starcraft 1 formula.

You know 'strategic zoom' is a buzzword that refers to single-button movement to fullscreen, right?

Do now .

[DesertFly]

Of course there's not going to be a way to zoom out and get an overview of the action. That would give "hardcore" (aka no imagination) players too much advantage and would "destroy the flow of the game". I'm not saying that Starcraft 2 should necessarily include every feature of every one of the games I mentioned, but skimming even some of the ideas from them would result in a markedly better product than the reskinned SC1 we're going to get. (BTW having new animations and a handful of different special abilities for units isn't change. Those things have existed since the first game came out. For free.)

[JointStrikeFighter]

I didn't bother signing up, because no RTS has been able to scratch the itch left by Company of Heroes.

Try World In Conflict adam.

[The Jester]

Starcraft II does have one strong innovation going for it in that the unit path-finding is actually remarkably good. The sad thing is that they've deliberately included gameplay mechanics which require you to perform tedious actions in order to maximise your economy. They did take a large step forward over the original Starcraft with the inclusion of multiple building select, unlimited selection groups and workers who aren't complete retards, but then included specific mechanics just for the purpose of getting all the lost tedium back. All because of the ridiculous fanboy whining from those who spent hours every day working to improve their utterly useless skill of building more units and rebinding their hotkeys didn't want to face the fact that all that time really was wasted. The truly sad thing is that they refer to these skills as being "management" which gives you an idea about how out of touch with reality they are.

From what I've read, Starcraft II multiplayer mostly just comes down to the person that builds the most stuff, so I guess it's Mission Accomplished for the fanboys.

[[R_H]]

I didn't bother signing up, because no RTS has been able to scratch the itch left by Company of Heroes.

Try World In Conflict adam.

I was going to recommend it as well. Speaking of Company of Heroes, I still haven't played it.

[Lord Relvenous]

After watching those SC2 videos, I'm loving that the unit and building voices are the exactly the same as they were in the original. I understand wanting to have a feeling of continuity between the two games, but that's incredibly lazy.

Edit: Never mind, I was watching an old video.