StarCraft II Official! (Pictures)

[AA7Dragoon]

^ You know I just thought of something.  SC2 is basically keeping most of their ground units with the Protoss (even the Reavers despite the Collossus) yet overhauled the entire air fleet.  With the exception of the Mutalisk and the Battlecruiser, I wonder if the same is going to translate to Zerg and Terran?

And another thought.  I think since the announcement of SC2, the Zerg race has been the least developed of the three.  I think StarCraft 2's playability has so far been built on the Protoss experimenting with the Terrans.  I wouldn't be surprised, as the developer team becomes more experienced, that they come up with an even more sophisticated and cool design for the Zerg Race.  You know what they say, "finish the best for last."

[IskatuMesk]

AA7 > Yeah, I also concluded the Zerg are the least bit finished.

And I think I know why.

The Protoss are a specialist unit-based race, while the Terran units are "general purpose" in their own unique kind of ways. The Warp Ray, the new Carrier, and the Phoenix are all excellent examples, followed by the Immortal, and the Stalker. They are unique units with specialist attributes that make them highly effective in certain matchups - and extremely powerful combined.

If the Zerg had already been finished and resembled what they are now, they would be triple K fuckkked. They wouldn't stand a chance against that INSANE amount of aoe (Phoenix, Colossus, and Reaver would alone seal the zerg's fate). Right now the Protoss have so much goddamn crowd control it's not even funny.

That's why they are the first race. They are the Guerilla warfare, and designing those kinds of races is the most troublesome. The terran are next, because of their "general purpose ranged warfare" ideal. Facing them against the protoss first instead of last makes balancing the two quite a bit easier - For example, the Colossus might be changed to deal a bit less damage because it kills marines too fast. If the protoss came last, balancing them would be ridiculously hard with the terrans because the terrans were balanced against a swarm and general-based race, the Zerg, and suddenly you are pitting them against a completely unique opponent.

Vise-versa, the Protoss are probably very close to being "beta" stage, if not already. The terran have some things done, but Blizzard is seeing how they can change the terrains while keeping them fairly close to the terran playstyle, but keeping check on how they play against the Protoss. With only a few of the core Zerg units in, they can also see how both races fair against a simple Zerg playstyle (huge fucking numbers).

With the addition of completely apeshit units like the Star Relic and the Mothership, the Terrans are going to need some pretty new toys of their own. Battlecruisers have yamato and that's about all we've seen that would really face off against the protoss right now. Even then, the BC lasers seem to be a lot weaker compared to what they were in SC1, and a group of BC's has a hard time killing just about anything without resorting to yamato spam. This indicates that they are either really, really incomplete and unbalanced, or the Terran are going to get another heavy ship, or just a stupid amount of anti-air from Goliath/Wraith equivelents.

All speculation at best, but the zerg are definitely the least finished. I think when the time comes, though, they will progress fairly fast. Blizzcon should give us a good indication how things are looking.

[chris]

It would be also a little cooler if the queen if they add it, could infest more structures.

quoted for truth
people are suprised that the socut is gone?
IMO it was the worst SC unit in the game. super strong anti-air attack and literally no ground attack. and for a cost of 300 minerals? to hell with the damn ship....

[Maglok]

Doack did you really just use terms like AoE and crowd control related to SC? I guess it's true, but those terms are SO WoW.

[Fatburger666]

My favorite race has always been the Terran, I'm excited to see what Blizzard has in store for them. The Zerg are the weakest units unless used in mass so what Doack said was right more than likely

[Marine]

Of course the Zerg are the weakest, they're main force is mass similar to the undead except the undead have some more brute strength than the Zerg.
Protoss are mine but of course they do cost alot of resources to produce them, i cant wait to use their Mothership.

[IskatuMesk]

Doack did you really just use terms like AoE and crowd control related to SC? I guess it's true, but those terms are SO WoW.

Yeah, I picked up a few things, haha. They still apply very well, though.

[Meta]

I just lost hope in SC2 after watching this: http://gametrailers.com/player/22205.html 

[Lavarinth]

LEVELING UP?! GAY!


omfg- My drop ship drops enough units and it drops units faster after level up!

EDIT: WTF!? "It required.. Uh.. THREE high templar to make an Archon in Starcraft.. This time it'll only take TWO!"

[IskatuMesk]

THE LEAD PRODUCER THINKS YOU NEEDED 3 HIGH TEMPLAR TO MAKE AN ARCHON IN SC1!?!??!

...

...

I've lost hope.

[Taeradun]

lol

[AA7Dragoon]

Ok, the leveling up doesn't sound too bad.  The Soul Hunters can only level up "once" so that's a good sign.  As long as every unit doesn't do that I have no problem with the Soul Hunter.

BUT WHY?  WHY DID HE SAY 3 HIGH TEMPLAR?  I thought at first it was just a Freudian slip but then he said "In SC2 it will only be TWO High Templar and we think that will be a lot better"

....

[Marine]

LEVELING UP?! GAY!


omfg- My drop ship drops enough units and it drops units faster after level up!

EDIT: WTF!? "It required.. Uh.. THREE high templar to make an Archon in Starcraft.. This time it'll only take TWO!"

Finally if you level up your dropship ENOUGH it will just be throwing units out their before it lands.

[Taeradun]

Um ok so I've watched the video now...

Actually the only new thing regarding leveling that was revealed was that apparently now soul hunters only level up once to two beams, instead of getting three beams when fully leveled like had already been mentioned in that gaming magazine. And there was nothing at all to suggest that any other unit at all is capable of leveling up.

...Yeah but still not sure where that three templar archon thing came from; maybe he got his twos and threes confused with the soul hunter thing as well

[Anonymous]

Maybe he's just an idiot who should have been fired by now.

"Hello, I'm the lead producer of Starcraft 2. I've never played or seen the first one before, but I'm sure we can make some nice changes! Oh hey, 2 templar instead of 3! That's such an improvement, guys! ...guys?"