Starcraft II goes Gold!

[Lavarinth]

so lack of LAN is no issue.

Um, no LAN means there will be zero mods in sc2, as well as always being forced into enforced latency, which is total bullshit. Yes, it's a big issue. But the only worthwhile thing in his entire post.

Future SC2 Feature: Mod support, load your mods directly into SC2's engine through SC2 mod creation, eliminating the need of third party modding and to top it off, play online.

[IskatuMesk]

So, here's two questions.

1.) Are these actual mods as in not their bullshit limited mods, and thus unlimited in size?

2.) Where are you getting your information that is actually RELIABLE? The game has shipped with so many ludicrous ass-backwards bullshit from beta still in it that I cannot possibly see them doing anything like that.

[Lavarinth]

So, here's two questions.

1.) Are these actual mods as in not their bullshit limited mods, and thus unlimited in size?

2.) Where are you getting your information that is actually RELIABLE? The game has shipped with so many ludicrous ass-backwards bullshit from beta still in it that I cannot possibly see them doing anything like that.

1) I don't know.

2) In the interview I sat in they stated mod support will be one of the first major releases alongside cinematic support after release. This was far prior to beta and they were already assured it wouldn't make it to release. On top of that, at BlizzCon I found through a dev that not only would there be mod support allowing you to customize everything including aspects of Battle.net (though I'm sure that was pushing limits there and probably not sticking) but a pipeline feature would also exist where you can split aspects of mods and maps to be worked on separately live through cloud storage.

[IskatuMesk]

So basically the cloud storage thing immediately rules out unlimited size, bringing 1.) to a crashing, burning death. Which brings us back to square one.

[Lavarinth]

So basically the cloud storage thing immediately rules out unlimited size, bringing 1.) to a crashing, burning death. Which brings us back to square one.

Cloud storage is only required for pipeline creation, to my knowledge. And considering from my understanding it was intended to support all data such as models, music, in addition to the expected maps and XML, it's debatable whether or not size is unlimited or not.

[IskatuMesk]

Given that battle.net's map limits are currently heavy-handed to the point of laughable absurdity I can safely bet that, at least for the time being, an actual mod will not happen, at least not one that will use the cloud storage. It's arguable if mod support will ever exist at all, given that chat channels and other core, fundamental features of the game will probably need the first or second expansion to start manifesting.

/e

Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure the storage will be a micro transaction thing. After all, when Blizzard thinks about customization, all that's going through their head is
                                       
8==================D o o o $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[Dread]

I suppose it's inconceivable to believe that the limits associated with size at this point are in place solely as a precursor to where Blizzard doles out their full mod/ campaign/ map support where things will change.

[IskatuMesk]

It is. People are freaking out. And they have good reason to. The limits have not changed since beta. The editor has a shitton of bugs still from the beta that remain unchanged.

This isn't beta anymore. Or is it? May as well be. If you're going to release a game, you'd best make sure it's ready for release. Otherwise you end up pissing off all of the people who were looking forward to making big projects. Or really, projects at all. Christ, you've got people trading hosting maps to keep them on the popularity list, you've got melee mappers begging people to publish their maps for them...

[UntamedLoli]

I wasn't kidding when I said phase 3 starts on the 27th.

[Dread]

The mod, campaign, and map support was never going to be in full force for the retail release of SC2: WoL. There remains much more with regards to collaboration and the mechanics behind how the various facets of development will occur to be seen. Seems to me it was made quite clear that the beta was to handle balancing races more so than handling the development side of SC2, which is still being doled out.

The take home message is to calm down, but alas, this appears to be one of those internet moments where people will congregate together, pop on their tinfoil hats and proceed to freak out for whatever reason. There was lots that I wish Lavarinth and I could have put together from our experience speaking to some developers at the last Blizzcon; however, things that were stressed to us have not been released at this point in time. It is coming.

[Edit] Don't bother mentioning the bit about, "races not being balanced even through this beta". It's irrelevant, and the beta was intended to begin that quite difficult process. Whether it was successful or not is besides the discussion occurring in this thread.

[Master Jademus Sreg]

I agree with Lavarinth; Demoneater's complaints are basically non-issues. Not that there aren't reasons to complain, but those aren't it.

The subjects of my complaints
* Region-locking: The only remaining obstacle to me purchasing the game. At least half the people with which I am well acquainted in the community are not in my region.
* 2MB galaxy VM limit: Reported by people who practically disassembled it, apparently the limit is an issue with the virtual machine architecture and is unliokely to be fixed soon, if ever.

[IskatuMesk]

...

As far as anyone is concerned your talk with the "developers" is just people talking out of their ass about something we have no idea will ever make it into the game or not at all. Until Blizzard officially says anything, which as they haven't even responded to any modding-specific questions so far seems unlikely, I'll merrily don my tin foil hat. There are only two people I know of in Blizzard who readily acknowledge what mods are. Neither of them have any power over what happens to the game.

This whole releasing games in alphas shit is getting old fast. You twits are so ready to defend Blizzard to the last breath as though their very feces is worthy of your undivided fanaticism. I realize that you don't make custom content or even so much as give a shit about what happens to it, but some people do. The complete and total lack of communication while handing us what is basically a death sentence to an entire genre of custom content is all we have other than your word of mouth. And, quite honestly, I only trust word of mouth as far as I can throw Spain with my pubic hair. Especially when you were so eager to fight me on the very definition of what a mod actually is.

I don't care about balancing. That takes a long time to do. There is no easy way around that. I wouldn't be playing competitively anyway. Maybe Mantits has something to say about that, but he seems content, so it must be fine, or good enough anyway.

Maybe I should remind you about something when it comes to Blizzard's statements about anything happening.

http://www.wowwiki.com/Soon

Maybe if my birds were more talkative I'd be more willing to take your word. But I treat total silence as an indication of the end times. That is typically the way things go.

Now, where's the rest of my suit..

[Dread]

Shouldn't have even bothered, alas;

[imgwh 500x313]http://podcast.campaigncreations.org/Paranoid.png[/imgwh]

IskatuMesk, dear ol'chap.

[IskatuMesk]

what

[Demoneater]

- You just get ONE race campaign. The others will be sold as addons for a quite high price I suppose. You are paying then for just a 1/3 of the campaign. Nice move, hm?

You tards aren't STILL complaining about this, are you?

?
Just because this point gets talked over and over again, the malus doesn't disappear, does it?

LAN: Get over it. LAN was something useful when we all had dialup. Almost any household is connected to the internet now, obviously you are, so lack of LAN is no issue. If you take a look all around, you'll notice LAN overall is disappearing. Don't point your finger at one company only.

First Off, there are still many, many regions where people don't have internet, it is too expensive to them, the dsl connection is too bad and unstable or there isn't internet where they live.
Recall, while Internet is easily accessable in Europe, North America and maybe Asia, it isn't really for all the rest of the world - South America, Africa.

Also, I know that at many "LAN parties" they cut off the internet or try to forbid it to the players so they really play with each other.
What happens if the official MP servers are down? You can't play MP at all then (Be it that they are temporary offline or permanently after years the game got released). Though, I must really admit that the WC3-Battle.net is extremly stable and was almost never down since I played WC3 in the net.

So: Can be hardly argued that it isn't a malus again.

Connection: No, you don't. Turn off your connection. Surprise, you can play. What can you play? Singleplayer. Because it's singleplayer. If you're connected to the internet you might as well be connected to multiplayer. Why be connected during singleplayer? Achievement spamming. Xbox and PS3 do this, and the Wii are all connected online at all times. What reason is there not to be connected at all times. Who cares what they do with the data? Splinter Cell collected data of all maps and strategies used, and presented it in a press release. Did people out them for collecting anonymous data? No, because that's a ridiculous argument.

They have removed that "feature"? Wasn't aware of that, TBH. I just recalled that Blizzard was going to use a similiar mechanism like AC II where you have to be connected to the authentication servers to play single player.
Consoles are different to what I critized before, since you don't have to be connected to the net to play SP games.
TBH, I CARE what they do with my data. Even if you aren't interested in what will happen with it, your neighbours, your possible employer or banks might be. Be it that they disagree to employ you or to give you a job, or that they are just god damn curious what you do all the time. Although this example isn't really comparable to games but general to all that data collection stuff, I am not going to let my neighbours known which illnesses I have, how much money I have and so on.

Game Price: It's 2010. Get with the times, get a job. 60 dollars is not overpriced. Buy any  other game just released and you'll find yourself saying "all of these games are overpriced!" But take a look at the bigger picture, oh wait, that's just standard pricing now. And.. Shocker! It's cheaper than the mid-90's, and that's not even including inflation. Games ranged between 50 to 80 dollars in the mid 90's when minimum wage was much less than it is now, if you look at the market overtime you'll find PC games (and only PC games) have decreased in price over time. Get your facts straight.

Actually, it is true that PC games were both more expensive in the past and that the inflation pushes the prices, it must be seen from different views.
First, I am pretty sure that the production of PC games (ok, console games maybe as well except of such fees microsoft and maybe also other demand from the developers. M$ demands about 6-9 U$D for every PRODUCED single unit, not even sold ones. Imagine if you pay for a Xbox 360 game just 50 € instead of 60€, wouldn't this be a positive thing?) got cheaper.
Second, while the price may have dropped, the average number of sold units has rised DRAMATICALLY. In the 90s, how many people had a pc or internet? Diffinitivly much less than now. I don't say that there might haven't been such many PCs in home networks in the 90s, but definitivly much less than today in my opinion.
Third, it is new to me that PC games costs meanwhile about 60 €, if you recall correctly you will track down that it was ACTIVISION BLIZZARD who did the first step with COD:MW2, wasn't it? Strange to see the same price coming from the same developer, uh? Just because one or a few companies demand such much it doesn't make it a standard.
ACtually, we have the choice to support them in raising the prices, or we don't do. Again a pretty stuipd question, what is better for the user: A game that costs 50€ or one that costs 60€? If we all would really bind together than we could prevent such price changes.
Fourth, just because they were more expensive in the past there is not advantage to the customer to fall back to that prices.

One race: Get over this the most. The campaign is extremely fleshed out and so far it's taken me longer to play than StarCraft and Brood War combined. There's a reason for that- It is  longer. There's a plethora of other features available aside just a campaign for singleplayer. Maybe if you owned it and played it you'd quit bickering about it.

OK, I have to admit I CANNOT judge about the length of the campaign itself, but I still see the big money thing. The difference to normal addons is here definitivly that they planned from the beginning to release multiple parts of the game.

Also, what I just saw, it seems that the graphics are quite low for today's standards.