StarCraft II Official! (Pictures)

[Mucky]

Seriously, did the Terran player actually bother to build anything other than Marauders?  I saw a handful of marines, and six or so Hellions and three Banshees near the end.  But everything else was all Marauders.

What a lazy terran player! I mean, did he even bother to build anything but Marauders? I mean, aside from all of the other things he built, obviously. I mean, other than those things, all the guy did was build one thing.

From what I saw in that game, Marauders are the infantry version of Tanks. Makes me wish the guy had used at least one Tank just for contrast.

The Colossus was poorly matched. The narrators even said that Marauders have an advantage on them, and the Terran went out of his way to build some Banshees. Speaking of the narrators, I'm grateful that the game had such fanatical commentary. I wouldn't know what I'm watching otherwise.

[Marco]

I got used to the commentary after being exposed to a few other SC matches.  It really serves to bring important or exciting plays to your attention when a casual observer might otherwise miss them.  Try watching the match with the volume turned off - just doesn't come close to being the same without the commentary.  Anyways, I like this video if for nothing else then to see SC2 in action.

[Rocco]

It's about time Blizzard updated the site too, what has it been, 3 months?

[keegee1012]

I really like the mothership pics!
=)

[AA7Dragoon]

lol, look what sponsor advertisement popped up for the CC forums when I clicked on this thread:

http://sementank.net/?gclid=CIyQz53i0pcCFQsQagodYlCDBw

Look what this site has become.

[dreamerhorwitz]

lol, look what sponsor advertisement popped up for the CC forums when I clicked on this thread:

http://sementank.net/?gclid=CIyQz53i0pcCFQsQagodYlCDBw

Look what this site has become.

An ad for a liquid nitrogen tank?
(sarcastic) It's good to see some people still think of us as killers in training.

[Thalraxal]

Seriously, did the Terran player actually bother to build anything other than Marauders?  I saw a handful of marines, and six or so Hellions and three Banshees near the end.  But everything else was all Marauders.

What a lazy terran player! I mean, did he even bother to build anything but Marauders? I mean, aside from all of the other things he built, obviously. I mean, other than those things, all the guy did was build one thing.

From what I saw in that game, Marauders are the infantry version of Tanks. Makes me wish the guy had used at least one Tank just for contrast.

Hey, it's been a while since we've seen anything from the game, it would have been nice to seem more than just Marauder, marauder, MARAUDER.  Like you said, it would have been nice to see a Tank or two.  Assuming Banshees occupy a similar slot as the Wraith, and Siege Tanks are about the same as they were in SC1,  he should have been able to build them.

Now they probably didn't want to show off too much in their first Battle Report, but still.  Some more unit variety and a less one-sided fight would have been nice.

[UntamedLoli]

It would have been alot better if they put in players that had any idea what they were doing.

[Meta]

Hey, it's been a while since we've seen anything from the game, it would have been nice to seem more than just Marauder, marauder, MARAUDER.  Like you said, it would have been nice to see a Tank or two.  Assuming Banshees occupy a similar slot as the Wraith, and Siege Tanks are about the same as they were in SC1,  he should have been able to build them.

Now they probably didn't want to show off too much in their first Battle Report, but still.  Some more unit variety and a less one-sided fight would have been nice.

Hmm Banshees seem to do something different in SC2 - they can cloak and are fast like the Wraith, but their damage and range seem much, much bigger. It seems to be an unit with elements of the Zerg Guardian, and that distinguishes it enough from the Wraith IMHO. Still, yeah, it'd been nice to see Ghosts (who are supposedly much more powerful in SC2) and Tanks. On the Protoss front, no air units at all, no Templar, only one Nullifier (without any spell usage) and no Blink for Stalkers... meh, let's hope for more variety next time. 

Btw, there are some new screenshots online, and this time they have weather effects. The Badlands one looks very good, it seems like it's night time and it's also raining. It has a very Fallout-ish feel to it.
[imgwh 640x480]http://www.starcraft2.com/images/screen ... -hires.jpg[/imgwh]

[imgwh 640x480]http://www.starcraft2.com/images/screen ... -hires.jpg[/imgwh]

[imgwh 640x400]http://www.starcraft2.com/images/screen ... -hires.jpg[/imgwh]

[Marco]

Day/Night confirmed, glee.  I was pretty sure they would do this but I wasn't absolutely certain.

[Maglok]

Very good move for modding.

I also heard stuff about real lighting. Let's say I want to darken a room during a boss fight, this oughta be possible. While in SC and WC3 it really wasn't so much.

[Maglok]

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/starcraft-2/940879p1.html

Dustin Browder interview with some single-player blabla.

[Marco]

Nice find Maglok.  I especially like this question:

-----

GameSpy: Can you describe in a bit more detail the structure of the single player campaign? If there are 26-30 missions is that in a linear chain and how does your structure enhance replayability?

    Browder: "Tightly-scripted" may not be the right way to describe our philosophy as it relates to mission design in StarCraft II. Those of us who have played a lot of RTS campaigns have already played a bunch of the typical skirmish missions, or the commando-style missions where you navigate a hero character or two through a maze of enemies. We're not looking for StarCraft II to do 25 or 30 of those tried-and-true mission types.

    We're doing our best to make sure our missions give players new and unique experiences, so we're viewing each mission as its own special mini-game. We don't want to give away too many surprises, but we can tell you that one of the missions will have you doing a series of train robberies. How that exactly plays out, you'll have to wait and see, but we're having a lot of fun putting these ideas into practice.


-----

I love the fact that they are finally going to go beyond the normal build and destroy formula and go with the 'unique gameplay' formula.  I mean when you think about it, the triggering for this kind of stuff isn't too hard, especially for Blizzard.  I'm glad to see that they are finally putting more into their map design, and this is a whole lot more.  I'm anxious to see what they come up with.  I already have quite a few ideas of my own just based on the WC3 engine - anxious to see how far they will go in comparison.  I have high expectations for Blizzard in this area.  Lets see what their map makers can really do.

[Meta]

Hah, Blizzard has learned the value of minigames - even some TFT official maps back in the day had a few of them, if you guys remember. I really look forward to playing the official campaigns: my expectations are also high this time around. With more cutscenes, more missions and many more unique maps, I expect Blizzard to set quite a high standard for SC2.

I expect the factions in SC2 to be given much better characterization this time as well, like, for example, the blood elves in the WC3 expansion campaign, who had their own footmen, workers and such. Thus, I expect different Protoss tribes and Terran militia/government forces to actually have their own specialized units in SC2.

[Xenon]

Hmm Banshees seem to do something different in SC2 - they can cloak and are fast like the Wraith, but their damage and range seem much, much bigger. It seems to be an unit with elements of the Zerg Guardian, and that distinguishes it enough from the Wraith IMHO.

Confed U-22 Spectre IIRC.