StarCraft II Official! (Pictures)

[mAc Chaos]

lawlz SC is raped time to play D3

[Frozty]

Honestly, I hate the names as well. Roach? Might as well call them Beetles.

Would rather Beetles.

[Rocco]

Ugh, these names are terrible and what they're doing to simple units like the Hydralisk is very dissapointing.

[Marco]

http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/10/ ... -friendly/

There is a ton of new information here.  Basically none, but still, its not really a good read.  In fact, don't read that.

[AA7Dragoon]

^ Do you think a man with hair as long as that gets laid, Desler?

[Negi]

The one thing I agree with on unit naming is the Mothership. They were first named that because they were a sort of superunit, an idea that was quickly scrapped. Now the name is just outdated.

What I'm worried about more is what they're doing to the Hydralisk. It's not as if it was this god of omnipotence in SC1; it was just their bread-and-butter unit and their only ground unit that could attack air, so they could be used in FFAs and whatnot. Now they're only effective on air? This is starting to be like WC3 where counters are decided not by the role of units, but by arbitrary numbers and armor types. I know I'm isolating one scenario in asking this, but... are these developers stupid?

Exactly!  I mean, how the hell are you going to make the TRADEMARK FUCKING UNIT that shitty.  I mean, it is the unit on the fucking box art. 

[IskatuMesk]

So they made Hydra's only useful against air now? What the fuck?

Watch the videos. Hydras get absolutely destroyed by just about anything. Even Banelings are utterly useless against stalkers, which are supposedly relatively fragile, even when they don't teleport away, but get this insane damage bonus vs buildings.

SC2 is very hard countery right now, and it's not just hydras. Wc3 has poisoned their minds.

[Marco]

^ Do you think a man with hair as long as that gets laid, Desler?

I think if you work for Blizzard, there are some women who'd do just about anything.

[Meta]

So they made Hydra's only useful against air now? What the fuck?

Watch the videos. Hydras get absolutely destroyed by just about anything. Even Banelings are utterly useless against stalkers, which are supposedly relatively fragile, even when they don't teleport away, but get this insane damage bonus vs buildings.

SC2 is very hard countery right now, and it's not just hydras. Wc3 has poisoned their minds.

To be honest, in my opinion SC: BW is at its core a hard counter game. Just look at some familiar melee scenarios::
- Vultures vs Dragoons or any large armor unit;
- Carriers vs marines;
- Reavers vs zerglings;
- Tanks vs Dragoons

What made SC's gameplay so damn good is that you could actually maneuver around those limitations and completely revert the situation. So, this Protoss massed dragoons? Yeah, I'll try to surround him with my Vultures, lay mines all around those slow-firing units and be back before they blow up. Same could be done with Dragoon dance vs Zerglings, spreading your Zerg units to nullify splash damage, the famous marine dance vs Lurkers, July's Muta Micro and so on. The many possibilities brought by skilled micromanagement made SC a fantastic game. I enjoyed micro so much that I even made two campaigns, and their gameplay was based on pure micro.

Nowadays these tactics are well known, but they weren't there when the game launched - only the potential for them.I used to think it was all made on purpose by Blizzard, though, something like "hey, at its core it's a simple game with kinda hard counters, but when you start microing your units, pretty much anything can happen". Now I'm having my doubts. 

This arbitrary "extra damage versus target X because this unit is supposed to own target X no matter what" thing must stop. In BW you have a full number and it's either 100%, 50% or 25% damage: it's much more intuitive.

Also, an ability I currently don't appreciate in SC2 (and it seems to be a clear sign of bad hard countering) is the Roach regeneration rate. It should be an active ability that drained energy (along with some other side effect), IMHO. This would enable excellent tactical use of the Roach and creative several micro situations like those present in SC:BW. Same for the Marauder's, or whatever the unit is called now, "slow missile" effect. Passive abilities are boring as hell and should be kept out of SC2.

Bear in mind that I've never played the game though, and that I'm pretty sure that it'll be a fantastic tool for mapmakers anyway.

[Anonymous]

I know what you mean by sc1. It seems like a hard counter game, but it's very dynamic. The dragoons vs vultures is an excellent comparison.

In PvT, you'd think vultures would be useless because the dragoon piles. Vultures are, however, a key unit, and not just because of mines alone. Zerglings vs reavers are another example - Well, Reavers vs anything is a good example. Shuttle+Reaver control make or break a good protoss.

In SC2, hydras are virtually useless to get unless the enemy is getting air units - yet they are still a "core" unit.

SC2 has taken out the major skill and dynamic factors, along with high risk and high reward units, and dumbed down the metagame and mechanics. This isn't just my opinion but the opinions of everyone who's actually played it.

Browder is a C&C designer and C&C is all about hard counters and the skill differences between players is nearly non-existent, which is why there is virtually no pro gaming scene at all. Blizzard says they have pro gamers on their development team but it's been proven over and over they don't even know how to play their own game.

Beta will make or break the competitive portion of the game, and I think it's going to be the most dramatic and challenging beta for Blizzard yet.

If you take away SC1 and just see SC2 as a standalone franchise, it's really not even close to sc1, even if you completely exclude MBS and automining from the equation. Personally I don't care for automining, but MBS is perfectly fine. You shouldn't need to have to manually click every building; that's just stupid and that isn't going to make a difference so long as the actual gameplay itself is in-depth enough. With so much in the way of increased mobility, Terrain plays less of a role, so on so forth. I think these are problems that should be addressed foremost.

What really makes me worry though is stuff like this.

http://www.sk-gaming.com/content/19212- ... emographic

[Marco]

Didn't I just post a similar article Doack?  In any case, I honestly don't care what the competitive scene looks like, or hard counters or anything like that.  The editor is the game for me.  =)

[IskatuMesk]

I dunno. I'm just skimming these days.

As a competitive game I don't expect much out of sc2, either. They're trying too hard to make it E-sports friendly. So, the editor is the game for me, and that alone will decide what I choose to do with it.

[Taeradun]

esports are shit

[Marco]

I always had more fun playing the Use-Map-Settings in SC and Custom Games in WC3.  Actually, fun fact, I never played a single regular game on Battlenet in WarCraft 3.  In fact, I played that game so little as a whole.  A few DOTA games, a few tower defenses, a few CTF games, the whole single player campaigns, and thats about it. 

[Rocco]

Yeah, I found WC3 melee gameplay to be about as boring as it gets.