Starcraft 2 - worth buying?

[Lissa]

...Also, don't forget about Mine Sweeper...

Especially if you're doing it with real WWII mines using a hammer...

[Mavfin]

(a) It has pretty tough online anti-piracy protection. You have to set up a batle.net account and register the key to play at all. Then when you play it is by default with an internet connection. You can play offline, but you need to re-register the game online every 30 days, so don't expect to go off to a desert island without internet access for a few years and bring along SC2 as your one computer game.

This is some of the biggest @#$%^&*( I've seen yet. The federal government needs to step up and make a ruling on behavior like this. Stuff like this, and limited reinstall really bother me. Nystul got it right, this is a lease not a purchase. Arrrrrrgh!!

Actually, Vinnie, I'm happy trading the online restriction for not having to find the CD every time I want to play. There's a price for everything. I don't even OWN a CD for the game. I pre-downloaded and registered a digital key, and was happy I didn't have to go to a store or anything to get it.

So, one man's horrible thing is another man's cool feature. No, the federal government doesn't need to step in. If you don't like how they do it, don't spend your money on it. Let the market decide.

As said above, if you liked the original Starcraft, you'll love the new one, imo. I'm not a HUGE RTS fan, but I love the story, and don't need Cliff Notes for it.

[LennyLen]

All that being said, I have no idea if SC2 is worth playing; my brain can't handle micromanaging, so RTS games > me.

A well designed RTS should balance macro- and micro- management. So long as you can do one well, you don't need to be great at the other, just not bad. The reason why I was never really a fan of the first SC is that it requires far more micro skills than macro.

[eppie]

Can people who have played the game give me their 2 cents about whether it is worth buying Starcraft 2?

Can you play this game alone at home or is it only battlenet?

If you can play it alone and it is like starcraft 1 I will for sure buy it (if my laptop can handle it)

[Frag]

You can play offline, and it's like SC1 but a lot more accommodating to me, Eppie.

As for the macro vs micro thing, Lenny, I believe they've nailed it from a neophyte perspective. Much like coming to the Lounge for D1, Basin for D2, EJ for WoW, I've been using Team Liquid's site for SC2 and found there is a nice balance between some of the best players in the world. Some are amazing at macro (IrdA), some at micro (BigT) and some at flex/aggressiveness (Davie) and all of them win large amounts of games. The races seem to be setup to give a natural advantage to a players natural preference. Zerg for macro, Protoss for micro and Terran for aggressive-flex. With the bracket system, I feel like the only games I've lost so far are games I could have won (strongly unlike in BW & WC3) and that's a huge deal for someone so bad at RTS's and my lack of ingame experience. I have no doubt I could be missing some things, but my impressions so far is that they busted their brains to come up with a perfect product and didn't do half shabby in that attempt.

Regards,
~Frag

[Zich]

I'm liking the reviews so far, which saddens me because as I stated in the pre-release post, SC1's huge draw was that it was a take-anywhere game and really suited to family get-togethers in places with no net/where you had to pay extra for internet.

My brother-in-law plan to buy it, so I will be playing on his account to see it. If it truly has less micro-management, I suspect I will enjoy it much more than the original. SC1 felt nit-picky and tedious, more like I was babysitting than commanding a competent military. That aside, thanks to LAN play the original consumed weeks of my college life and is still enjoyed several times a year with family.

I think I'll be missing out, but Blizz's 'anti-piracy > consumer concerns' policy for SC2, coupled with the '3 stages = more $$$' release plan means I'll only be playing via a friend's account to see the changes


and lastly

Actually, Vinnie, I'm happy trading the online restriction for not having to find the CD every time I want to play.

The original has been disc-free for years, just register your serial number on battle.net and you can download and install a disc-free version from there. Assuming you kept the box or wrote the number down, of course >.<

[Crusader]

Back on the original topic: I have the Collector's Edition and it's worth the 90 Euros! Great game, great story and the singleplayer has kept me busy for 12 hours now, and I'm only about halfway through the campaign. I started playing on Hard and it's challenging! Had to restart several missions multiple times.

I like that in the campaign you can pick the order of the missions you want to do somewhat and each mission unlocks a unit or gives your research a boost (unlocking upgrades). For example, there was one mission where you got a flying air-to ground unit, which is critical to the success. It's also a timed mission, but it was too hard for me. So I did another few missions until I got a air unit that could attack both air to ground and air to air (albeit weaker) and is a bit tougher, so it can withstand Anti-Air a bit longer. I think a combination of these 2 units makes it possible for me to complete that mission (haven't tried yet). Alternatively I could lower the difficulty and breeze through, but I don't want to do that.

[LennyLen]

As for the macro vs micro thing, Lenny, I believe they've nailed it from a neophyte perspective. Much like coming to the Lounge for D1, Basin for D2, EJ for WoW, I've been using Team Liquid's site for SC2 and found there is a nice balance between some of the best players in the world. Some are amazing at macro (IrdA), some at micro (BigT) and some at flex/aggressiveness (Davie) and all of them win large amounts of games. The races seem to be setup to give a natural advantage to a players natural preference. Zerg for macro, Protoss for micro and Terran for aggressive-flex. With the bracket system, I feel like the only games I've lost so far are games I could have won (strongly unlike in BW & WC3) and that's a huge deal for someone so bad at RTS's and my lack of ingame experience. I have no doubt I could be missing some things, but my impressions so far is that they busted their brains to come up with a perfect product and didn't do half shabby in that attempt.

That sounds promising.

[Kevin]

You know I thought it would be a no brainer for me getting this considering how much I played the original and the expansion Brood Wars. I'm still having issues with the lack of LAN only play, and not sure the extra money for each races campaign will be worth it, as they did quite well with the campaigns for all 3 races in SC1 and in BW.

The large number of folks I know that are playing it does have an affect on the decision, but I'm debating voting with wallet on this one, even if it's "too late" since they've already sold a ton of copies. Besides $60 is still something that takes consideration in my budget.

[Nystul]

I'm sure I'll pick this up at some point regardless of the online check in with mommy system. But I've gotten to the point where I just don't care about having brand new games or even having people to play with. I work nights and I can't be bothered to get good at competitive games anymore anyway. I pick up games after they are dirt cheap and the expansions are included (and most of the game crashing bugs and huge balance problems have possibly been fixed.... Blizzard comes closer than most to getting it right the first time), and I don't have to upgrade my computer quite as often. Sad but true.

[Hammerskjold]

You know I thought it would be a no brainer for me getting this considering how much I played the original and the expansion Brood Wars. I'm still having issues with the lack of LAN only play, and not sure the extra money for each races campaign will be worth it, as they did quite well with the campaigns for all 3 races in SC1 and in BW.

The large number of folks I know that are playing it does have an affect on the decision, but I'm debating voting with wallet on this one, even if it's "too late" since they've already sold a ton of copies. Besides $60 is still something that takes consideration in my budget.

Same here. I used to play tons of SP SC1, didn't really care about the multiplayer much. Since my style tends to be one of simcity\virtual sandbox ant farm.

Almost all of the review I've read so far, gives it a high mark content\gameplay wise. One issue prevents me from forking over cash right now though. (I can probably wait until all 3 campaign is released and bundled as a SC2 collection.)

The thing that still kinda bugs me is what Thecla described. If SC2 does requires me to check in every 30 days to re-validate for SP, it's annoying.

No, SC-2 is not an essential service, yes piracy is definitely a problem (I went to an EB store some weeks back and their PC game section is decreasing in terms of shelf space).

To me this is not an issue of 'it's bliz playground, play by their rules or gtfo stop complaining its just a game'. This is not about whether having a physical copy vs digital download version.

Bliz or any other companies doing this kind of thing, I don't see it deterring the really determined pirates much. I do see it as potentially turning off buyers like me though, who thinks once I hand them over the cash, I do feel entitled to be left alone to play the game.

If this game was a restaurant, I'd feel annoyed if a waiter comes over to me every 3 minutes to ask if everything is OK. (Hint hint, you will pay for that food right sir, you are not going to do a dine and dash?)

Again, I'm sure someone might pipe up and say no one -needs- to go to a restaurant to eat, its just a game etc etc.

Which I will say again, is missing the point. I've seen other examples of non-game software that took this route. And they're a bigger company than blizzard. (ie:Industry level\standard graphics creation programs, and that's all I'm gonna say without getting too specific. Not that it's a big secret anyway.) And from what I've seen, it did not deter piracy much. Those who don't care a fig about legalities, will get it cracked.

Those who do want to pay for the program, are given more hurdles to pass it seems with every new version.

I can't think of any solution myself really. Everyone involved has some share of blame, ideally everyone involved should also have some share of the solution.

And when that happens, I'm sure my unicorn pony will arrive in the mail, along with my collector's edition of SC:Ghost.

[--Pete]

Hi,

I pick up games after they are dirt cheap and the expansions are included (and most of the game crashing bugs and huge balance problems have possibly been fixed....

Yeah. I used to get a lot of games out of bargain bins. I've still got a few that have the shrink wrap still on them. Just because a game has been around for ten years doesn't mean it isn't new to me the first time I play it.

Bliz or any other companies doing this kind of thing, I don't see it deterring the really determined pirates much. I do see it as potentially turning off buyers like me though, who thinks once I hand them over the cash, I do feel entitled to be left alone to play the game.

Those who do want to pay for the program, are given more hurdles to pass it seems with every new version.

I can't think of any solution myself really.

I completely agree with this. I am almost fanatically against pirating. If I want the same software on three machines, and the EULA doesn't allow multiple copies, I'll buy three copies or do without. But more and more I've resorted to running cracked games after I've bought the legal copy. I've hated copy protection schemes as far back as the days of the intentionally damaged floppy and the "enter the third word of the second line on the fifth page" nonsense.

If someone is willing to make the effort, no software is uncrackable. Even hardware security, such as dongles, can be bypassed by altering the code that checks.

I've never understood why the paying customer should have hassles running the software than does the pirate. Yeah, it might cut back on the casual, "I'll burn you a copy", pirating. But most people can find whatever they want at a warez site or buy a mass produced Russian or Chinese made rip off.

Just one of the stupidities of the world, I guess.

--Pete

[Treesh]

I completely agree with this. I am almost fanatically against pirating. If I want the same software on three machines, and the EULA doesn't allow multiple copies, I'll buy three copies or do without. But more and more I've resorted to running cracked games after I've bought the legal copy. I've hated copy protection schemes as far back as the days of the intentionally damaged floppy and the "enter the third word of the second line on the fifth page" nonsense.

If someone is willing to make the effort, no software is uncrackable. Even hardware security, such as dongles, can be bypassed by altering the code that checks.

I've never understood why the paying customer should have hassles running the software than does the pirate. Yeah, it might cut back on the casual, "I'll burn you a copy", pirating. But most people can find whatever they want at a warez site or buy a mass produced Russian or Chinese made rip off.

Just one of the stupidities of the world, I guess.

--Pete

Anyone remember Sacred? You had to have the physical disc in the drive when you wanted to play (normal, no real complaints there besides I don't want to dig up the disc each time), but every single patch it would break the validation for different cd rom manufacturers and models. Every single patch a new round of legitimate users who wouldn't be able to play because it wouldn't recognize that they did in fact have the game in the drive. Apart from all the other bugs it had, that one made the game completely unacceptable. Once you get to the point where your customers can't use the game they bought because of the horrible anti-piracy (but the pirates can still play), it's gone too far.

[Kevin]

Anyone remember Sacred? You had to have the physical disc in the drive when you wanted to play (normal, no real complaints there besides I don't want to dig up the disc each time), but every single patch it would break the validation for different cd rom manufacturers and models. Every single patch a new round of legitimate users who wouldn't be able to play because it wouldn't recognize that they did in fact have the game in the drive. Apart from all the other bugs it had, that one made the game completely unacceptable. Once you get to the point where your customers can't use the game they bought because of the horrible anti-piracy (but the pirates can still play), it's gone too far.

Hah, how could I forget, I was glad I was mostly able to get around that crap for the legit copies we had, but I do remember having to fight with it most patches.

I did like how Stardock handled this issue for Galactic Civilizations II though. No copy protection on the media, but if you didn't register and validate you didn't get patches, and finding the patches elsewhere was difficult. The game was very fun and playable without them, but they added enough additional content to make it worthwhile, being registered was hassle free too. You also couldn't validate on the support forums without it, but you could still post and stuff. But they flat out said, they knew it would be pirated, they didn't want you to, but that was fine. They were also aware that they garnered new customers because of this too.

But it was refreshing to see a company say, yeah, it happens, but the effect is not huge, we trust the folks that are going to pay will pay and the folks that are going to pirate are going to pirate, why inconvenience our paying customers? The devs had to fight marketing pretty hard to get them to do this, as marketing wanted the copy protection and all the anti piracy stuff they could get. They were very public, even posting discussions from legal and stuff about it. Was refreshing.

[Chesspiece_face]

I just picked this up on the Battle.net store. Well not "just" about 9 hours ago. I can't speak to the quality of the game but the quality of the download install they have for it is pure crap. This is a major step back from the system they built for WoW. The last time I installed WoW I did so from their battle.net download client and it took less than 3 hours to do the entire thing including patch updates. I am now 9 hours into the Starcraft instal and am lucky if I can get more than 70kb downloads from the absurd set up they have. I was up to 50% but had the wonderful experience of losing power for two seconds and now lost 20% of the download.

I could have saved myself what will end up probably being 2 days of downloading and just gone to the effin' store and grabbed the box copy. Anyone thinking of getting this game don't bother with the digital purchase unless you are ok with not doing anything else with your computer or internet for a few days.

[Jester]

I'm not sure it's fair to compare the ability to download WoW at some random, innocuous time, vs. downloading Starcraft 2 the week it comes out. I suspect their end is looking quite busy right around now.

-Jester

[Chesspiece_face]

I'm not sure it's fair to compare the ability to download WoW at some random, innocuous time, vs. downloading Starcraft 2 the week it comes out. I suspect their end is looking quite busy right around now.

-Jester

The value of my time is not relative to Blizzard's release schedule. Maybe they are hit hard this week. Maybe the downloads will be better later this month That doesn't change the fact that I'm looking at a wasted 2 days because I based my purchase off my previous experience with their download services and anyone else that doesn't want to waste the rest of their week should just take the hour to drive to the store.

[Mavfin]

That's why I pre-downloaded before launch. Only took 4 hours overnight on the weekend before launch...

I didn't activate/buy the key till Friday the 30th, but I had a patched install waiting when I did.

[eppie]

You can play offline, and it's like SC1 but a lot more accommodating to me, Eppie.Regards,
~Frag

I was reading the box in a shop and read a few lines about monthly payments, and the fact that you need an internet connection to play.

The last will be no problem, but I was a bit confused by the first part....I hope there are no monthly payments like with wow ( I don't play many hours usually and paying when your not playing is a bit annoying).

[Frag]

I was reading the box in a shop and read a few lines about monthly payments, and the fact that you need an internet connection to play.

The last will be no problem, but I was a bit confused by the first part....I hope there are no monthly payments like with wow ( I don't play many hours usually and paying when your not playing is a bit annoying).

Your sentence caught my interest, as I honestly didn't read the box, so here's what it says straight off the back of mine:

You're Going In.

In the distant future, in the darkest reaches of space, the ghosts of the past whisper your name. You are Jim Raynor, a marshal-turned-rebel on a vigilante crusade to bring down the Dominion and its nefarious leader, Arcturus Mengsk. Haunted by betrayal and remorse, some believe you may have given up the fight. But you have promises to keep... and a need for vengeance that's long overdue.

Call Down The Thunder
Whether you command the mysterious Protoss, the nomadic Terrans or the ruthless Zerg, you must decide how to outwit or outgun the enemy in an unforgiving universe of intense strategic combat.

Weapons Primed
Devise and deploy merciless strategies with over 30 new units and weapons at your command. Torch foes with the Hellion's flamethrower, ambush adversaries with acid-spewing Banelings or deploy the Void Ray's prismatic beam to annihilate your enemies.

Master Your Destiny
Lead Raynor's Raiders in their quest for vengeance and glory as they burna path across the galaxy. You choose which missions to take, whic story-lines to complete and where to invest your hard-earned cash.

Mega Multiplayer
Wage unrelenting war on your friends and foes over the all-new Battle.net. Whether it's your first time gaming online or you're a multiplayer veteran, Battle.net's unrivaled AutoMatch technology makes sure it's always a fair fight.

Blizzard Entertainment
www.blizzard.com

Technical Support (949) 955-1382
techsupport@us.battle.net
P.O. Box 18979, Irvine, CA 92623

INTERNET CONNECTION REQUIRED.
PLAYER IS RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL APPLICABLE INTERNET FEES.
BATTLE.NET REGISTRATION REQUIRED.

Battle.net
Dolby Digital Pro Logic II

T for Teen, Blood and Gore / Language / Suggestive Themes / Use of Alcohol and Tobacco / Violence
www.esrb.org
Online Interactions not rated by the ESRB.

Maybe the "Player is responsible" part wasn't translated properly?
~Frag