StarCraft II Official! (Pictures)

[Aiursrage2k]

If they are going to do something like episodic content than can we except to pay less for it (such as monkey Island). Paying 60 for each one seems unreasonable.

I thought they said they were not going to add new units to each chapter as the multiplayer only guys did not want that.

[UntamedLoli]

That merely means there wouldn't be anything new to melee games if they did that, nothing stopping new things from being added for UMS/Campaigns.

[Maglok]

If they are going to do something like episodic content than can we except to pay less for it (such as monkey Island). Paying 60 for each one seems unreasonable.

I thought they said they were not going to add new units to each chapter as the multiplayer only guys did not want that.

Blizzard's expansion packs have never been as expensive as the full game. That said it is an expansion not really episodic content (which tends to be defined by a shorter development cycle) of course there are exceptions like Half Life Episode 1/2/3. They are very standalone, they still cost. If I hear episodic I think like Sam and Max or that Penny Arcade thing.

I personally look forward to it a lot. The only thing that bothers me is, we will have to wait for the full story of the Zerg and the Toss.

[IskatuMesk]

They have said these are full expansions. As in, there will be new units in multiplayer.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

Personally, I don't mind their trilogy system for the following reasons :

1) All three races are fully playable from the get go in multiplayer.

2) While the campaign focus on the Terran, it's logical that they will include a few Zerg and Protoss side maps for players to have some minimal off-melee experience before seriously playing them in melee. To the very worst, many have already played SC1 and will adapt quicker to Zerg / Protoss compared to understanding a totally different game.

3a) It comes with an advanced editor. At worst, I expect around 70% of TFT's editor (which is enough to play with until they add back to a 100% via patches + first expansion) and at best around 150% (all or almost all TFT features + brand new features).

3b) Heck, I remember other games where it had no editor when it logically should have one, other cases have a useless or hard-to-use editor and/or you need to wait the first expansion JUST to be able to have any half-interesting editing features.

4a) We know that Blizzard adds worthwhile content in their expansions regardless of the game. For many other games, you could spend 80-100% of original game's price for each expansion and basically only have 10-25% more content (all mixing campaigns, editing features and other extras).

4b) In addition, Blizzard simply don't shoot in their feet royally with their expansions compared to some companies that do manage to create their game expansion so bad that you don't even want to play the expansion even if you can.

5) Overall, you can have faith in Blizzard's game quality overall especially vs other companies' games. To the very worst, you know that at least one important aspect will be decent (as in between SC2 campaigns, melee gameplay, editing options for new maps, etc.)


As for the part where they might cancel it :

6) Financial-wise, they have interest to release it after so much money spent. Since Blizzard by tradition don't aim for the latest computers requirements and SC2 is not for a niche market, they ensure lots of consumers will buy their game.

7) I don't expect that they will cancel it for any reason except of major acts of god that somehow hit Blizzard HQ. WoW is just the right game to provide constant income to ensure the company's survival over a good period of time.

[Lavarinth]

They have said these are full expansions. As in, there will be new units in multiplayer.

New units, new terrain, new features, and new single-player gameplay. In other words it wont play like it does how we play Raynor inside a Battlecruiser.

[Marco]

How do you make Jim Raynor fire his gun in the ship?

[Maglok]

Maya

[Legion]

7) I don't expect that they will cancel it for any reason except of major acts of god that somehow hit Blizzard HQ. WoW is just the right game to provide constant income to ensure the company's survival over a good period of time.

I don't believe in God. What I do believe in is misplaced faith.

I'll believe Starcraft 2 when I see it. (and I don't mean  Starcraft 2 - Episode 1, I mean Starcraft THE GAME).

Meanwhile, I'll love Blizzard for the past works excluding Warcraft 3 and WoW and their intentions to deliver us great goodness!

[DrumsofWar]

Isn't anyone looking forward to the first RTS game that will constantly and robustly change its melee balance in a major way once every few years for an entire decade without releasing 5 million expansions like Command & Conquer did?

[Legion]

Isn't anyone looking forward to the first RTS game that will constantly and robustly change its melee balance in a major way once every few years for an entire decade without releasing 5 million expansions like Command & Conquer did?

Source?

[UntamedLoli]

---StarCraft II Q&A Batch 54 ---

[SC2 Forum]
1. Does the Zergling vs. Zealot ratio remain at 4:1 or has it changed in the latest builds?
One zealot can usually take out two, and sometimes three zerglings. However, the ratio is mainly based on positioning and micro-controlling. As the number of zealots grows, it will take more zerglings to win the fight since the zealots can clump up and reduce the attacking surface area. Smart use of terrain, such as a choke or backing up against a wall, will also help a protoss player reduce this attack area. Zerglings have to secure a good surround around the zealots to keep the ratio close.

[SC Legacy]
2. In World of Warcraft pvp they found an issue over time that it was "very unsatisfying" to the player when they lost control of their character as it limited their ability to do their job or role. There is a noticeable increase in stuns and immobilization in Starcraft 2, which was barely present in Starcraft 1. From your experience in testing, do you feel abilities, which limit unit control, provide more dynamic game play so far or are you noticing more concern?
First of all, there were actually some abilities in the original StarCraft that could cause players to lose control of units. These abilities include the ghost’s lockdown, the corsair’s disruption web, and the dark archon’s mind control. It may be premature to suggest at this point that there’s a “noticeable increase” in stuns and immobilization in StarCraft II.
To address the comparison anyway, in World of Warcraft, you control a single character, unlike RTS games where you manage multiple units and bases. The difference in the World of Warcraft is when you lose control of your character you simply have to wait it out, assuming you don’t have any control breaks. However in StarCraft, when units in your army are being controlled, you can still issue orders to the rest of your army, manage your base, build new units, etc. There are a lot of options and we happy with the diversity it brings to gameplay at this point.

3. What is the current status of the Mothership? What niche does it fill at this time, and if the unit were removed, would there be a reason to fill that niche with a different unit or would protoss still be fine?
Currently the mothership has a passive cloaking field for nearby units and buildings, wormhole transit, temporal rift, and vortex as its abilities. We are happy with the state of the mothership at this time, and would like to hear feedback from the players once beta starts.

4. What is your overall goal for the Infestor? The units have had and removed so many abilities, are you trying to focus into a support role, or disruption and harassment, or just to have a wide variety of spells so it can be a quick response unit?
It is intended to play more of the disruption/harassment role. They are meant to burrow and move up ahead of the swarm to soften up their opponent’s forces.

5. Is EMP dodgeable, or there's some sort of indication that it's going to be launched? And does this cause a problem with Immortals?
It’s possible to dodge EMP, but it is difficult to do. Your options include anticipating your opponent will be casting an EMP by seeing the ghost or its shimmer and predicting it; being near the edge of the EMP range and moving out quickly; or using the stalker’s blink ability.

[Vile Gaming]
6. Map/mod to site communication – Will there be support for map/mod makers to bridge a connection between their map/mod to their site? For example, if a person wanted their map/mod to submit scores/results to the site, and vice-versa the map/mod could pull the highest scores from the site and display it in the game.
It is possible for players to make their own custom score screens but there are no specific plans to bridge map data to web sites via Battle.net.

7. Launcher support – Will maps/mods be able to have their own "launcher" (ala WoW’s launcher), as in shortcut or start icon from the computer outside of StarCraft, and have their own screens, after a Battle.net authenticating screen (ala Twitter’s, or Facebook’s, application authentication).
There are no plans to allow maps and mods to have their own launcher. However, making a loading screen or launch screen is still possible.

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=20462449519&pageNo=1#0

Ask some of your own questions for the Q&A's.

http://forums.battle.net/thread.html?topicId=20462449524&pageNo=1#0

[thebrowncloud]

To be honest, I actually am pretty much done with the Q&A's. It's been long enough where I  know almost everything that I care to know about the game before it comes out and now I'm just waiting. I'm curious to see what other people want to know and maybe I'll remember one of my old questions, but I'm pretty content as is. 

[IskatuMesk]

The Q&A's are really just blizzard picking the worst possible questions/repeat questions and saying the same thing over and over again in some vain effort to soften the inevitable blow of "The beta won't be in 2009".

[thebrowncloud]

The Q&A's are really just blizzard picking the worst possible questions/repeat questions and saying the same thing over and over again in some vain effort to soften the inevitable blow of "The beta won't be in 2009".

That. After just now taking the time to read through the Q&A, I feel dumber and less enthusiastic about SC2. I don't really want to hear the same gameplay questions, like "What's the status of the mothership/infestor/thor?" and gameplay number crunching crap. I just want the game. No data updates. No info on if we will have access to mundane feature ideas (a launcher unique to a custom map? But why?). I just want my fucking game.