StarCraft II Official! (Pictures)

[omega20]

You mean that link I just posted?  Great find.

*ahem*

Obviously, I didn't notice they were the same link.

[imgwh 312x176]http://i724.photobucket.com/albums/ww25 ... m6v4ic.gif[/imgwh]

What?!

[Lavarinth]

I hope they get the old Kerrigan back... she did the voice of the BW medic too, and really I think is the most talented voice actor from the original staff.

I thought that was Jason Haye's wife, hm?

[AA7Dragoon]

At long last, Desler reveals himself!

[IskatuMesk]

At long last, Desler reveals himself!

Get a grip on yourself!

[IskatuMesk]

Online replay viewing/sharing apparently won't make it into release (Like wc3 which still lacks it altogether). Cue massive riot.

There was another fansite Q&A but nothing terribly informative came out of it as usual.

[IskatuMesk]

I'm curious why they aren't able to get it in by release, though. Bnet 2.0 is supposed to be so great and amazing but no online replays? :\ Wc3 never got it at all, and that really hurts more than you might think.

Might need to make a replay compendium.

[IskatuMesk]

Won't need to use guncam with sc2.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

I'm curious why they aren't able to get it in by release, though. Bnet 2.0 is supposed to be so great and amazing but no online replays? :\ Wc3 never got it at all, and that really hurts more than you might think.

Might need to make a replay compendium.

Well, they are supposed to have done one improvement about replays and it is to be able to view any old replay on newer versions of SC2 (instead of just replays of a same major version like in wc3 thus requiring different wc3 versions just to see them).

To me, the only reasonable way to do it is if they keep all older different versions in the patch MPQ in addition of the current version.

Which can be good since it might allow either more direct support for maps/mods that get outpatched by SC2 (easier to make some kind of old version loader by Blizzard or auto-load old SC2 version per old map) or indirectly (some third-party tool pointing to said files).

Although the downside is obviously that patches are going to be bigger but in today's means of data transfer, it's a very good trade for convenience.

In addition, depending on how they pull it off, MPQ programs might have to be updated with some SC2 version tag per file if they rely on such tag to easily load the right files.

EDIT : By the way, some might say that BW replays could be played on any BW version but in reality, older replays don't consider resource cost changes, different AIs or other things that ultimately falsify the older replay in question. Plus, I don't remember many UMS BW replays working well to boot.

[Xenon]

Saving the game messes up the timing and causes the replay to fall apart as well.

[Symmetry]

As does pausing; and in older versions, random switches.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

All UMS BW replays work if played at the speed at which the game was played.

Well, last time I tried with a very recent version, it still kind of failed at 1x.

And even if it's true, Warcraft 3 at least had a different edge in making custom map replays work even when going at 8x speed (max for wc3).

So ultimately, the SC2 replays are supposed to be :
-> 100% sync'ed for custom maps at any speed (like in war3)
-> playable on multiple versions (like in BW but without the related flaws)
-> reliance on external custom maps (like in war3 while BW got played map inside replay file)
-> have forward and backward viewing features (instead of just forward like in BW/War3)

What isn't supposed to be implanted :
-> Multiplayer support for replays (at least not until an expansion)

[Xenon]

2 limitations on Wc3 replays that are hopefully fixed in SC2:

Only chat messages visible to the recording player are shown.
GetLocalPlayer() always returns player 1, so only effects visible to player 1 (such as triggered messages and camera movements) are shown.

[Ricky_Honejasi]

2 limitations on Wc3 replays that are hopefully fixed in SC2:

Only chat messages visible to the recording player are shown.
GetLocalPlayer() always returns player 1, so only effects visible to player 1 (such as triggered messages and camera movements) are shown.

I believe the initial WC3 version (as in v1.00) did show chat messages in replays from all players even from enemy player to his ally. However, I presume it would have been removed as some kind of anti-cheat mechanism since cheaters could create a program to show up said enemy non-global messages in-game (no data sent means no data to show).

However, enemy map pings stayed probably in replays due that it helped much more for legit players to report map hack cheaters than cheaters using them against legit players.

[Hercanic]

Does this mean anything, or does everyone have this icon in their Battle.net account?

[Rocco]

Yeah everyone has it, its just to show that they're releasing the beta soon or something.