Author Topic: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy  (Read 42338 times)

Offline iPPi

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #200 on: Saturday, October 22, 2011, 10:25:02 AM »

Offline scottws

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #201 on: Saturday, October 22, 2011, 05:01:00 PM »
Schweet.  So Sarah isn't really human after all.  I had thought it was pretty wasteful characterwise to turn her back into a human.  And damn if she isn't voiced by Tricia Helfer from Battlestar Galactica.  I suspected it as soon as I heard it; a quick check confirms.

And check out the appearance of Nova from Starcraft: Ghost.  And now another Zerg bitch?  I love it.

Anyway, hopefully this redeems my disappointment in Wings of Liberty.  The Zerg are my favorite race, after all.

Offline Cools!

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #202 on: Saturday, October 22, 2011, 07:44:40 PM »
Yes, it's Tricia Helfer. And yes, Nova makes an appearance in Wings of Liberty as well.

As far as the new stuff coming in the expansion I'm only excited about the Zerg units. Even then it's hard not to make the comparison with Brood War: the Viper is a flying Defiler and the Swarm Host is a modified Lurker that acts like a burrowed Brood Lord. Finally we get a speed upgrade for Hydras because at this point they are almost never used due to their very slow speed and low health.

Terran changes are boring; I don't want more Transformers units and the Shredder seems way too powerful and not really necessary. Blizzard has a bit of a problem here because they want to add new things, but it's hard to improve upon the most "complete" race in StarCraft II. Terran already has the most variety in units.

I have mixed feelings about the Protoss units. On the one hand they sound really interesting, like the Replicator, on the other hand they are gimmicky and don't actually solve the current problems with the race. Some of the changes, like removing the Mothership and adding the Mass Recall, or the new ability to give an attack to any building are going to be really annoying to deal with (ie. more cheese). I feel sad for losing the Carrier. It's such an iconic StarCraft unit. Instead of buffing it and making it useful they are replacing it with an ugly giant Corsair from Brood War.

Anyway, we'll see how it turns out. :)




Offline scottws

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #203 on: Saturday, October 22, 2011, 08:12:27 PM »
Huh.  I played through WoL, but I don't remember Nova.  Either I missed her or it was just something I didn't find notable and have since forgotten.

Offline Cools!

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #204 on: Saturday, October 22, 2011, 08:13:46 PM »
She makes an appearance in the Tosh storyline. You have to decide wether to join her against Tosh or stay with Tosh.

Offline Cools!

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #205 on: Tuesday, October 25, 2011, 01:04:08 PM »

Offline scottws

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #206 on: Tuesday, October 25, 2011, 08:00:38 PM »
I don't play SCII multi but I'm surprised by the Terran dominance you are talking about.  SC wasn't like that.  Surprised Blizzard hasn't fixed the balance yet.

Offline Cools!

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #207 on: Tuesday, October 25, 2011, 09:08:29 PM »
It's mainly in the Korean tournaments (GSL). Protoss is currently experiencing the most difficulty. Which just shows you how quickly the state of the game can change since less than a year ago Protoss was considered "op" (overpowered).

According to Blizzard they have almost 50/50 win rate in all the match-ups on the maps in the current ladder map pool. So according to their metrics, the game is currently "balanced". They have been pretty quick at addressing some of the problems, sometimes maybe too fast and didn't give the community a chance to develop their own solutions. GSL by the way, uses a lot of their own maps.

Personally I think a lot of the balance issues are related to the maps. Blizzard has been really slow at updating the ladder pool and following user feedback. Some of the maps are really bad and too small (which encourages cheese and 1 base timings). StarCraft/Brood War was mainly balanced through maps. So if a particular race was too strong an a particular map it [the map] would either get modified or would disappear altogether. This was a community driven process and avoided what we are seeing now in StarCraft II: changes that weaken high tier units; which creates a lot of weird situations. Like for example, Protoss Carriers being annihilated by tier 1 marines and making the Carrier one of the most useless units in the game (incidentally, it's currently slated to be removed in the expansion pack).

Offline Cools!

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #208 on: Friday, January 20, 2012, 01:14:27 PM »
Still playing the game. Now in the process of learning Terran. :)

Offline iPPi

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #209 on: Saturday, March 09, 2013, 01:17:36 PM »
Apparently Heart of the Swarm comes out on Tuesday. 

Offline scottws

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #210 on: Sunday, March 10, 2013, 09:25:07 PM »
Apparently Heart of the Swarm comes out on Tuesday. 
I didn't even know that.  I went ahead and pre-ordered the Collector's Edition, if only because I am a big fan of the original SC and have the one for Wings of Liberty.  Frankly, I'm not too excited about it.  I found the story of SCII:WOL to be a big let-down.  I'm sure the multiplayer was good, but I'm not really into that.

Offline gpw11

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #211 on: Sunday, March 10, 2013, 10:43:57 PM »
I didn't even know that.  I went ahead and pre-ordered the Collector's Edition, if only because I am a big fan of the original SC and have the one for Wings of Liberty.  Frankly, I'm not too excited about it.  I found the story of SCII:WOL to be a big let-down.  I'm sure the multiplayer was good, but I'm not really into that.

Yeah, I didn't even finish it.

Offline sirean_syan

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #212 on: Monday, March 11, 2013, 06:54:33 AM »
I think this is the first Blizzard game I haven't preordered (not counting the WoW expansions) since... I dunno, the original Starcraft? I was too let down by how Diablo III was handled and the story in Wings of Liberty. I'd only want Heart of the Swarm for the campaign and I suspect they're doing to do all sorts of stupid stuff with the Zerg like making them good guys or have some bullshit turnaround for Kerrigan.

Kinda sad, but it's hard to get all worked up for anything Blizzard does right now.

Offline Cools!

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #213 on: Monday, March 11, 2013, 01:04:00 PM »

Kinda sad, but it's hard to get all worked up for anything Blizzard does right now.

Pretty much. I'm actually more interested in the SP than MP. The RPG-like setup of the Zerg campaign actually looks fun. The story itself is probably another thing (WoL was a bit of a let down for me).

MP wise, there isn't really anything that makes me go "wow". The new units feel more like patches to introduce more variety to the current game. Yes, that's is nice, but it's also not really original or revolutionary. Nothing feels very powerful anymore. Everything else, like clan support, watching replays together, etc. is all nice and dandy but should've been in the game 2 years ago.

My biggest problem with SC2 is that after 3 years Blizzard has still not realized that no matter how hard they try to push 1v1 most people still prefer to play team games and that has probably been the most neglected area of SC2. People want to goof around, go in, have a few games, have fun, forget about it. Yet team maps are also the least often updated and it has deteriorated into the same boring shit game after game. The mod scene just never picked up from the start, partly because of Blizzard's insistance that all projects be saved to Battle.net.

People are quick to claim that SC2 is balanced for 1v1 and that balancing it for 2v2, etc. would just be impossible. Therefore team games would never ben "fun" because some strategies would always dominate. Well sure some strategies will dominate, but that's because the community can no longer modify the maps in the ladder pool to deal with the particular annoying ones. That's how SC1/Brood War was balanced: if a particular strategy proved too powerful on a particular map the community would quickly alter the maps slightly or create new ones. Maps that were imbalanced for a particular race would simply fall out of favour. Blizzard didn't have to nerf units, the community did all the balancing through a constantly evolving map pool.

We can't do that anymore in SC2. Blizzard has an iron grip on the map pool and is very slow to adapt community created ones (or balance changes to the current ones). So instead of balancing the shitty maps they try to fix the game by constantly nerfing the units, to a point that every unit feels weak. The result is that games feel like they are decided in a rock-paper-scissor fashion within the first couple of minutes of a match. When a line of tanks can no longer hold a hoard of Zerglings or Zealots you got a problem...

So yeah, will I pick up the game? Sure, at some point, probably when I see it at a store. Am I really excited about it? Hardly.

Offline scottws

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Re: Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #214 on: Monday, March 18, 2013, 05:17:34 PM »
So has anyone played SC2:HotS? Is the SP any good?

My pre-order at Target fell through so I ordered from Amazon. Should be here on Wednesday.

Offline scottws

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #215 on: Monday, March 25, 2013, 07:04:10 AM »
So I've played some SP HotS and I like it so far.  I'm a sucker for the Zerg.

Offline Cools!

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #216 on: Monday, March 25, 2013, 02:55:13 PM »
I almost got it the other day. Very likely going to get it this week unless I decide to get Bioshock.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #217 on: Friday, April 12, 2013, 10:22:10 AM »

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #218 on: Sunday, July 07, 2013, 03:33:55 AM »
So after countless hours of Civilization 5 I decided I was in the mood for a different type of strategy game.

Played Wings of Liberty for the first time after I bought it so many years ago. Played about 4 hours and not sure why it wasn't received well on OW, but the game is awesome. Having loads of fun!

It does feel like a RTS lite after playing Company of Heroes and DOW2. Not being able to take cover felt off. That being said, a tightly developed Blizzard RTS map is a lot of fun.

Offline scottws

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Re: Re: Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #219 on: Sunday, July 07, 2013, 07:31:02 PM »
So after countless hours of Civilization 5 I decided I was in the mood for a different type of strategy game.

Played Wings of Liberty for the first time after I bought it so many years ago. Played about 4 hours and not sure why it wasn't received well on OW, but the game is awesome. Having loads of fun!

It does feel like a RTS lite after playing Company of Heroes and DOW2. Not being able to take cover felt off. That being said, a tightly developed Blizzard RTS map is a lot of fun.
Did you play single player or multiplayer?

I haven't played the multiplayer but the single player story is horrible. Especially after the first game.

Offline Cools!

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #220 on: Sunday, July 07, 2013, 07:51:46 PM »
I wouldn't call it horrible, but it was definitely a step back in terms of story. A lot of the elements that made the original game unique got removed, similar to how Blizzard gutted Diablo. The setting and missions were pretty decent, but felt a bit like mini-games and got very repetitive by the end (though there were a few really good missions). Heart of the Swarm improves things a bit, the missions are a lot more unique and interesting though the plot is still a huge 'blah'.

Multiplayer is a different story. :)


Offline Pugnate

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #221 on: Monday, July 08, 2013, 09:20:32 AM »
Granted I've not gotten very deep into the story, but I am enjoying it. It hasn't swept me away, but it is fun. I love the whole Mass Effect style ship stuff though.

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #222 on: Thursday, July 11, 2013, 12:12:34 AM »
Just curious how much you guys played of the SP? I got to the point where the protoss dude suddenly appeared infront of Rayner, and now I've done 3 of the Protoss missions. FUN!

I also like the RPG stuff like upgrading based on research.

It is all cool. Again, this RTS is seriously shallow compared to a DOW2 or CoH but it is so much fun. I forgot the tension of managing a strategy game in real time after years of Civilization 5 where I've put 225+ hours already.

Offline Cools!

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #223 on: Thursday, July 11, 2013, 09:23:18 AM »
I finished WoL and got about 7 missions into HotS (I'll probably finish it soon, just haven't had the interest to play SC2 lately).

Offline scottws

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Re: Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #224 on: Thursday, July 11, 2013, 02:59:49 PM »
Yeah I'm the same. Maybe a little farther into HotS than Cools. It is better than WoL, but neither one is anything remotely close to the original.

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #225 on: Thursday, July 11, 2013, 04:47:03 PM »
I actually never finished the original. I got to the point with the twist, and then my computer crashed. I think I was 60% through and couldn't be bothered to restart. I do remember playing through WC3 and when the EXACT same twist happened, except this time in WC3 I realized Blizzard really likes to recycle the one or two ideas they have.

Offline Cools!

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #226 on: Thursday, July 11, 2013, 06:14:42 PM »
And it's exactly the same now, only stretched out over 3 games.

For it's time, SC1 was amazing. The plot was interesting and had a lot of atmosphere, similar to that magic D1 and D2 had. Was SC1 the best strategy game? Hardly. I never liked the 12 unit selection limit, but the story and the uniqueness of the units made up for any shortcomings.

Another good thing about SC1 was that you only had to play a race for 10 missions at a time. Just long enough for it to not get boring. WoL at [I think 30] Terran missions started to drag after the first half even with the Protoss missions throw in for no particular reason.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #227 on: Monday, August 05, 2013, 01:39:11 PM »
I haven't gotten very far into the first campaign, but I did a good bit. I found the story, such as it has been, to be pretty decent. I wasn't terribly impressed with the story in the original, so I don't think it matters too much to me. I also feel like this is a much better, more robust game than the original... which doesn't matter, because I'm really not an RTS guy. I still don't know what exactly attracted me to this or why I decided I wanted to play it, but I've enjoyed the time I spent with it. I love being able to upgrade stuff and get resources and what have you. It's been fun even just replaying missions to try to get some achievements or extra resources. I like the hub of the ship too, that's a fun thing, and the characters are at the very least pretty colorful (where they were so ungodly cardboard in D3... barring the companions).

How did HotS turn out? I snagged it on a sale for pretty cheap somewhere, but I'm not nearly done with the first game yet. Sort of glad to have all these unplayed games now that I won't be able to afford to buy another for the next 15 years.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline Cools!

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #228 on: Tuesday, August 06, 2013, 02:08:07 PM »
I'm probably going to start playing HotS again tonight. I was enjoying the early missions a lot, probably more than Wings.

Offline MysterD

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Offline scottws

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #230 on: Monday, September 14, 2015, 02:06:26 PM »
Since I have the collector's edition of both WoL and HotS, I'll have to snag this one as well.  I don't particularly like the story in SC2 though, and never played the multiplayer.  It's more about completing the collection of the sequel to one of my favorite games of all time.

Offline MysterD

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Re: Starcraft 2 is a trilogy
« Reply #231 on: Friday, November 03, 2017, 12:03:07 PM »
IGN - StarCraft 2 is going Free to Play on Nov. 14th.

SC2: Wings of Liberty campaign becomes free for everyone period.
Those who already own Wings of Liberty, you'll get Heart of the Swarm expansion for free.