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Posted by: Synner667 Jul 27 2010, 09:13 PM

One of the best games ever has finally made it out of development and is available for sale.

This is the main page, at http://eu.battle.net/sc2/en/launch?ref=/sc2/

And this is some talk about it, over at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10773395.

Strap on your Marine armour, load up your Protoss machines or breed your Zerg...
...And enjoy !!

Posted by: Mr. Mage Jul 27 2010, 09:25 PM

And now the entire populace of South Korea has called in sick today.

Posted by: Karoline Jul 27 2010, 09:47 PM

Must have sucked having to live up to this level of expectations.

Personally I have no plans to buy this game, even though I'm big on Strategy games. Partly because I don't like that they've split up the campaign into three separate games (Last I heard anyway) and I don't feel like buying three games so I can get one game's worth of content. Partly because I'm not such a fan of twitch gaming, which SC is to an even greater level than most FPS games.

Posted by: Tanegar Jul 27 2010, 09:52 PM

That's quite some hyperbole. Have you actually played it, or are you just parroting industry hype?

Posted by: Oehler the Black Jul 27 2010, 11:05 PM

You're forgetting another key bit to how terrible the dearth of content is, SCII is the same damn game with better graphics. Despite this Activision is going to make billions.

Posted by: Voran Jul 28 2010, 08:00 AM

Honestly, I'd prefer another WH40k Dawn of War game, more 'dark crusade' than 'dawn of war 2' stuff tho.I like the tactical/strategic 'build a base and kill the fark out of everything'. Dawn of war 2 (and chaos rising) were fun.

Yeah, my main fear is SC2 is going to be SC1 just gussied up in new graphics. I mean that's cool and all, but you have to consider just howmany games of that genre have come out since SC rolled around.

Posted by: Dumori Jul 28 2010, 10:45 AM

I'd love a new homeworld game like thats gonna happen

Posted by: Sengir Jul 28 2010, 12:11 PM

Played the beta, less than underwhelming. Maybe once the SP episodes are leasead in one pack I'll buy it.

Posted by: DWC Jul 28 2010, 12:12 PM

It's not SC1 with better graphics. It's Brood War with better graphics, and a massive downgrade in multiplayer functionality.

Posted by: Dumori Jul 28 2010, 12:36 PM

I might get it when its £5 ish but I didn't enjoy the twichy micro managing of the 1st.

Posted by: Mr. Mage Jul 28 2010, 01:17 PM

I didn't even buy SC1 until 3 years ago, and I haven't even finished the Terrans section of the story... I love RTSs like Empire Earth and Age of Empires (The originals, not the sequels) but SC just seemed to limiting compared to those games. I might get SC2 when they have the whole thing (all three storylines) and all expansions in one box for $15 down in the bargain bin at Walmart, but until then... meh

Diable 3, however, I'm am almost definitely getting when it comes out.

Posted by: Thanee Jul 28 2010, 07:17 PM

They don't need to. It's probably a national holiday.

Besides, playing SC is what they do for work there.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 28 2010, 07:18 PM

Nah. What they make off of first annum SC2 sales WoW will make for Blactivizzard in about three months.

Posted by: Thanee Jul 28 2010, 07:21 PM

No way! That is EXACTLY what it must be. SC1 was perfect already. No need to ruin it by trying to make it all hip and everything.

All it needs is a modern game engine and a bit of polish here and there. Blizzard knows their stuff.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Karoline Jul 28 2010, 07:41 PM

I love those. Games where it is about long term planning instead of twitchy mouse controls. I loved it when I managed to get nukes before most people were even in the right age (EE). I also enjoyed playing the Britons and almost being able to outdistance the trebushe with my archers.

Posted by: Voran Jul 28 2010, 07:50 PM

Im all for modern polish on older games, if they could redo Wing Commander, or the old Fallout games, that would be awesome, but its not 'pay full game price' awesome.

Another Bridge Commander game for Star Trek would be nice too.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 28 2010, 08:03 PM

If you hit No Mutants Allowed, an enterprising fan went through and pretty much finished up all the stuff in Fallout 2 that they were going to add but didn't due to time/budget constraints.

I think it's like three times Fallout 2's original size. Fallout 3 is also a hoot, I find it to be a worthy successor to the original series.

Posted by: Mr. Mage Jul 28 2010, 08:08 PM

Ah yes...after awhile I got so good at managing resources and planning in EE that whenever my friend would challenge me to a game I would usually begin bombing runs on his castles within the first 2 hours... That's right everybody, "Bombing runs"
with planes on his "castles". That's one thing I really love about EE. Long term planning because you would be in it for a LONG time.

In my experience, SC games are usually over in 20-40 minutes (sometimes longer, sometimes shorter) but Age of Empires and especially EE were usually over after at least an hour and a half, usually more. And there was never a dull moment either.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Jul 29 2010, 06:43 PM

I may have to check into that. I really liked fallout 2 but the non-completed stuff was fairly annoying. Along a similar line anyone else like me play and love Acanum? They really need to come up with a sequel to that, alas it will never be.

Posted by: Doc Chase Jul 29 2010, 06:55 PM

He linked in a ton of things, expanded/rebuilt a lot of the old stuff (seriously, Klamath looks nothing like it used to), and it all runs pretty solid. It was a few years' labor of love.

I've heard of Arcanum, but I haven't tried it. I'm also debating whether or not to play SC2 right now.

Posted by: Mr. Mage Jul 29 2010, 07:03 PM

Arcanum? I LOVED that game! I can't even count the number of times I have played that game, restarted, and started anew with a different character concept. Gentleman Thief, Elven Sorcerer, Dwarven Rifleman, Old West Gunslinger, Gnome Technophile, Half-Orc Warrior and tons and tons more. Not to mention how so many of those older games (Fallout, Arcanum, Elder Scrolls, etc) were so easy to mod so there was always an abundance of custom story arcs and maps to play.

I would love a sequel to Arcanum, but they'd have to do it right! As much as I loved Fallout 3, I don't want Arcanum to end up like that. If Sierra or whoever owns the license to Arcanum ever decide to make #2, please keep the mechanics generally the same...

Posted by: Karoline Jul 29 2010, 08:07 PM

Sounds familiar but don't think I've ever actually played it. Was likely one of those games that I looked at and wanted to get, but never had the money when I kept spending it on other games ;P



Agreed. I liked Fallout 3, and it kept very nicely in line with the theme and feel of the older FO games, but the total redoing of the mechanics was kind of.. I don't know, I'd have liked something more along the lines of BoS a bit better. Updated graphics, few new mechanics, etc.

Posted by: nezumi Jul 29 2010, 08:25 PM

I'd have to say, Arcanum actually sort of sucked. It's the only game I've ever played where the difficulty level is set more by your choice of 'classes' than by the slider in the game. It was full of bugs, terribly balanced, and hugely easy to game.

However, it was also a beautiful concept, a lot of fun to play, and something I too would definitely want to see redone. Modern graphics and balanced gameplay would simply make it wonderful.

Posted by: Mr. Mage Jul 29 2010, 09:33 PM

I can see what you mean, there were so many patches for that game. It will, however, continue to rank as one of my all time favorite games, and I even have it installed on my Vista machine now (yes! there is a patch to let you run it on vista and win7!)

Posted by: Minchandre Jul 30 2010, 10:53 PM

What do you mean unbalanced? Just because a Summoning+Time mage could easily beat the game without ever allocating any points after level 20 or so doesn't make a game unbalanced...

Posted by: Tanegar Jul 31 2010, 02:35 AM

There's a school of thought that I'm partially sympathetic to (unfortunately I cannot now recall where I first read this argument) which holds that balance is a largely meaningless concept in a single-player game. There's no one else to measure your character against, so what do you care if your character is more or less godlike than another?

Posted by: Karoline Jul 31 2010, 04:17 AM

That's true to some extent, yet you can still measure balance against yourself (Ie, the game is easier with one class than another), but the thing is that you don't care nearly as much that X is overpowered or Y is underpowered.

Posted by: LurkerOutThere Aug 1 2010, 04:40 PM

Well to be fair getting dog in in (ashbury?) that one town made all the difference in the world difficulty wise.



When i played magic types I always went with harm on the low end for the day to day stuff and ran up the chain to disintegrate as quickly as I could for the golems, automations and other assorted stuff.

But i agree, not all choices in Arcanum were equally balanced but a whole bunch of them were a ton of fun to play and explore.

Only downside to Arcanum was the only way to support my technology habit was picking shopkeep locks in Tarant. Which once you got your lockpicking up to the point you could do it reliably was pretty much all the cash you ever needed. I bought Bates Mansion on pretty much theivery profits alone and had my mechanical army following me around to save the world.

Posted by: Dumori Aug 1 2010, 05:19 PM

Meh I've beaten fable useing only the stick and the 2 starting will and ranged weapons with out resurrection veils. I've also played the same game maxing my guy out before the first quest. In morrowind I've played mages of grate power or a warror forever gimped by the way hits are scored. Blanced this is not but its jolly good fun. That's all I care for.

Posted by: Mr. Mage Aug 2 2010, 01:41 PM

I like the way you think sir. One player games don't need balance so much as they need fun.

And beating Fable with the stick, eh? How long did those fights take? I've maxed out all melee skills and even when using an iron weapon (which I believe is the lowest, next to the stick) it still takes forever just to kill something...

Posted by: NetWraith Aug 6 2010, 01:54 AM

I think that one thing that everyone is forgetting about SC and WH:DoW is that they are RTS's that's why they're so twitchy. You're supposed to think quick and move quick like in an FPS(if you stop moving you die) and plan ahead like in a strategy game. You get you butt handed to you for a while until you learn what each unit you have is good at and not so good at then you stat using them in the right place at the right time.

I've seen most of you bad mouth SC and Blizzard but the sales speak for themselves... They have to be doing something right. Besides how can you go wrong with a James Raynor Dog-tag 2Gb USB drive that has the original and broodwar on it(yes, I got the collectors edition.)

And for those that play you can find me as Nightshade on Battle.net

-Netwraith

Posted by: Karoline Aug 6 2010, 02:16 AM

I'm not saying SC is a bad game, I'm saying that it isn't a game I particularly like. Personally I think there are two very distinct RTS styles. One of them is the one where yes, things happen in real time, but you don't need to be a TM with advanced overclock to be able to move your units quickly enough, and then there are games like SC in which your ability to quickly click back and forth between two different units and move them around is more important than anything else.

Personally I like the former, because it requires more relies more on strategy and thinking, while the latter relies more on being crazy fast with your mouse. I'm not saying that SC necessarily requires less strategy and thinking to play well, but it does require quicker manual reflexes. I have sucky reflexes, I get my butt kicked in FPS games, not because I can't get advantageous positions, can't sneak up on people, stand still any, or anything like that, it is simply that I can't coordinate my mouse/joystick quickly and accurately enough to ever hit people. I constantly run up behind people and start shooting them in the back of the head, and yet they still manage to turn around and kill me because half my shots are missing and they get nothing but critical headshots. I don't feel like losing a game that is supposed to be about strategy because the other person can easily switch out between two units and have them fall back by using 30 clicks a second, while I have trouble even clicking accurately enough to target one of the units.

So yeah, if I'm going to play a game that is supposed to be about strategy, I want to win or lose because of my strategy, not because the other person can click their mouse faster than I can. So give me games like Empire Earth and Settlers over SC any day. (Indecently, Settlers 7 may be one of my favorite games ever)

Posted by: toturi Aug 6 2010, 03:46 AM

SC is about strategy and tactics. If you don't have a solid macro strategy, you are not likely to win the war. If you are good at tactical level micromanagement, then you might be able to turn the tide of the battle more easily.

Posted by: Karoline Aug 6 2010, 12:16 PM

I never said it didn't have strategy and tactics. I know that the macro level is important, but being able to click quickly is also very important, and I don't particularly care for that in my strategy games. I'm not even talking about being able to respond quickly to something happening, I'm talking about pure mouse speed/accuracy. If I wanted a game that relied heavily on that, I'd go play an FPS.

Posted by: Mr. Mage Aug 6 2010, 03:35 PM

I just never really cared for SC because it seemed to "simple" for me. Now, I'm not saying the game is easy, or anything like that, I'm saying that compared to games like Empire Earth or Age of Empires, it is simplistic and restrictive.

In Empire Earth you have 14 ages you can span through, from Prehistoric age, where war is conducted with hairy men and their rather large stones (the ones made of rock, not the ones between their legs), all the way to the Nano Age, where you start sending out robots and stuff like that.
Each of these ages has its own, fairly sizeable technology tree, which when combined with the rest of the ages means you are going to have thousands of different options.

Age of Epires takes you from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, and only has 4 ages, but gives the benefit of having 12 different civilizations you can pick from, each with there own special units/weaknesses/strengths/building designs/etc. So you can either choose a favorite (Persians from AoE 2 were my favorite, Turtle Boats ftw!) or play them all.

StarCraft had three races, no different ages to go through and a comparatively small technology tree. Keep in mind, this doesn't make it a bad game. AoE and EE games take hours and hours if you play them to the end, while SC takes maybe, what, 30 minutes? So its good for quick online games, but I grew up with AoE and EE, so SC just seems lacking to me.

I have played it, and enjoyed the story behind the campaign mode, but I agree with Karoline, too twitchy for my tastes in an RTS.

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 6 2010, 03:50 PM

I've been playing a bit of Company of Heroes lately, and I have to say I really like it. Things like pinning and flanking add tactical depth while also making the combat seem more real. Good stuff.

Posted by: Dumori Aug 6 2010, 07:54 PM

I'm quite sure I've done a run with no leveling as well as stick only. Awhile is the answer and you need to master dogde and block.

Posted by: Dumori Aug 6 2010, 08:02 PM

On the straterty games. Sins of a Solar Empire can take days and hom world hours. In home world screwing up your straterty can mean failiure before you even enage some fleets are that slow. In both macroing can turn the tide keeping the longrange units farback mantaining fighter screens ect.

Posted by: tifunkalicious Aug 8 2010, 10:16 AM

I want FIFA to keep the same player positions, I want the bishop to move diagonally, I want to tap a forest to add one green mana to my mana pool, I want a quarter circle forward plus punch to activate a hadoken. I want dust2 to be a staple of the map rotation. I want my space marines to be fearless. And I want to press 1 and S to make an SCV out of my main command center

the single player is icing, or did you think the beta was for ironing out campaign missions? In the end, starcraft really wasn't made to be about a story. I don't care when I get to play the campaign bits. I've played the game since release and haven't even begun the first mission. Too much like SC1 is the point. There are games that elevate to a certain level of sport and looking at it with a traditional videogame point of view will just be disappointing.

I can get a rich roleplaying experience at a table and good story from a book, but I like most of my games pretty lean and balanced

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 8 2010, 01:25 PM

Oh. Mah. Gawd. You did not just play the "video games are sports!" card.

Posted by: Voran Aug 9 2010, 12:04 PM

Company of Heroes is great stuff. I'm glad I bought the pack on Steam. Though the more recent expansions were a little..different compared to the core gameplay. I've been playing SC2 for the past couple of days now, rather like it, though at times the scenario layout which kinda encourages you to discard use of earlier troop types doesn't sit well with me.

I mean, I'm perhaps past the 50 percent mark of the campaign, I've got thors, and siege tanks and fighter air-support, and I find that I don't use infantry anymore. Which kinda makes me sad, since I remember in the earlier levels, getting enough resources to pop 2 or 3 of those boosted regular marines with medic support was just awesome. Nowadays tho, most of the stuff I encounter if I DARE field infantry chews it to pulp in seconds, even with medics.

The general apparent limit of 59 'support/control' on most maps annoys me too. Since infantry and such are so fragile now, its simply not worth making more than a handful of them (to man the bunkers) and field a more mechanized force.

I'm hoping some of these upcoming later levels will actually let me use all these neat anti-zerg deathfield explosive awesomeorgasm stuff .

Posted by: Karoline Aug 9 2010, 01:38 PM

I'd heard that SC2 was using a bit of a 'rock beats scissors' approach, so some stuff would be particularly useful against heavy armor and some against infantry and so on. Maybe you're just seeing alot of anti-infantry enemies right now.

Posted by: Karoline Aug 9 2010, 02:24 PM

Well, guess what I just got for my birthday this morning

Posted by: Mr. Mage Aug 9 2010, 02:42 PM

A Pet rock?

And happy B-Day!

Posted by: Karoline Aug 9 2010, 03:38 PM

Sadly no

Thanks!

Posted by: BobChuck Aug 9 2010, 06:49 PM

The last level. It's a classic "the terran must hold out against the zerg for X amount of time", only you've got everything at your fingertips.... and you'll need it.

It took four tries for me to beat it. It's the only level on normal difficulty that I had to play more than once (except for the ones where I did something stupid). It's hard. I chose to take out the air (you'll understand). I ended up having to field lots and lots of siege tanks (bunkers and the marnies inside die too quickly, and are too difficult to get into place after the second or third wave), along with a fair number of missile launchers (no attacking air units, but overlords that can drop zerg were still fair game), a set of 8 banshees to deal with nidas worms (cloak ftw), and all the units I could spare defending the two entrances: 3 battleships plus any vehicles i could squeeze out while not making seige tanks on the left, and 2 battleships plus what my barracks was spewing on the right.

It was utter chaos. And glorious. The end is worth it.

I'm currently re-playing on hard difficulty, trying to get achievements. I'm very much stuck on Tosh's second mission, the one with the purple gas; the protoss are fielding mid-game units (the giant walkers and warp rays) and all I have are marines, maruaders, medics, and goliaths. It's nowhere near enough to survive, much less beat the level, mush less prevent them from closing off any gas dealies. Very frustrating.

Posted by: Karoline Aug 10 2010, 02:17 AM

I'm stuck on this level as well (on hard). Funnily enough I did the best my first time around. I was sitting at 6 recovered and 6 sealed, and had a good sized force left after finally clearing out that base right next to mine, and then they started sealing the last alter, so I rushed my troops over to them and went strait after the probe because it was already almost done by the time I got there. It literally went "Probe finishes, probe turns around to move away, probe dies".

My biggest problem is actually with those stupid lazer ships, they keep tearing my goliaths and bunkers apart. Maybe I just need to field more infantry because they don't seem to be fielding anything particularly effective against them. My grenade guys and marines are just tearing stuff up with 3 or so medics behind them to keep them healthy. That marine shield really helps with survivability.

Posted by: Hocus Pocus Aug 10 2010, 04:10 AM

i've entertained the idea of buying this...any good? no spoilers please

Posted by: Thanee Aug 10 2010, 07:53 AM

If you like RTS games, the answer is a definite yes.

If you only want to play the Singleplayer Campaign, I'm not sure, it is worth it, even though I think the campaign is really good.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Thanee Aug 10 2010, 07:55 AM

Sounds like you are having fun with the game (even though it is not exactly your type of game in general).

Oh, and a slightly delayed Happy Birthday!

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Thanee Aug 10 2010, 07:59 AM

I played this mission yesterday (on normal still).

I have chosen a very different path apparantly, as it was my 14th mission, so I already had self-repairing Thors, which made this mission kinda easy.

But a dozen or so Goliaths and a bunch of SCVs to accompany them for repairs (just make them move with a Goliath as the target, and they follow it around and repair anything in its vincinity, like its buddy Goliaths in combat; very useful, esp. with the 2x repair speed upgrade) certainly did the job as well.

I guess, if you play the missions on brutal, it is a good idea to chose the order wisely, so you have the right units for the tougher missions.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Mäx Aug 10 2010, 10:53 AM

Yeah the order in what you do the missions has a big impact, for example i had ghosts with perma invisibility on that mission where the colony is infected by the zergs and you supposed to destroy the building during day and hold out against the raging horde during night.
As the zerg have very few detectors in that mission and none with those waves that attack you a 3-4 invis ghosts per entry way pretty much hold the hordes at bay and what few got throught where pounded to ground by the mercenary tanks i had on the high ground. Also a bigger group of ghost was destroying the buildings during the day

Posted by: Karoline Aug 10 2010, 12:27 PM

Gezz, that was like my second picked mission. I just stuck marines and a couple of firebats in bunkers and ran out with hellions during the day. Think it was 6 days on hard.

Thanks! And yeah, I tend to enjoy the campaign in particular because you don't tend to have to micro quite as much to beat the computer as you do to beat another player.

I really like that you aren't limited to how many people you have selected at a time any more.

P.S. Someone said something about a unit cap? Only one I've hit so far is 200

Posted by: Voran Aug 10 2010, 11:44 PM

Finally finished the campaign. Yeah that last level was fun. I had to purposefully slow the game down to its slowest speed to micromanage things. WHich probably means I'd be eaten alive in multiplayer.

I do have to say that the Queen of Blades has an entirely cheap set of bossmoves. Its like 'instakill' for any of my guys, even the fully upgraded thors and battlecruisers.

I'm going to play it again though with a change in approach. I also picked 'nuke airsupport' so I had worms in that final mission, which really seemed to be the most disruptive elements, I'd like to see how a wall of fully upgraded anti-air missile towers fares against aerial assault.

I originally posted about a level cap, tho I may have been mistaken. It _seemed_ like earlier levels capped me at 59 terran support, but I can't be sure without going back, but it could be that they stealth increase the cap as the campaign goes on.

Still, that last level was fun.

Basically I did a minor ring of anti-air around the perimeter, to kill transports, augmented the primary entrances with pop up flame turrets (lots) tried to station at 1 thor and 3 cruisers along with ground troops (upgraded bunkers with attached cannons and 6 man capacity), siege tanks on high ground (though they had to be replaced from time to time), had to put defenses like flame turrets and patrolling banshees within the center of my base to protect vs worms. Oh and I had those anti-zerg thumpers, that slowed their attack and move speed.

My defenses lasted pretty well, up until the last 2 minutes. I guess because I didn't sortie out to take care of worms that weren't in my 'nova bomb' range they started throwing flaming zerg at me, that plus Queen of Blades coming in and wiping out a whole section of thors and battlecruisers before she could be taken down left me with soemthing of a hole in one of my defenses, so when the countdown reached 0 it was actually kinda close.

I did like the Protoss last stand map too, but I got the sense the AI started cheating at the end by instead of just sending more numbers, it almost seemed like my damage was being reduced. I do love those death-beam walkers tho. Wish I had those for the terran campaign.

Posted by: BobChuck Aug 11 2010, 12:40 PM

The Protoss Death-Beam walkers are great against infantry, and insanely good agaisnt zerg, but they are crap vs end-game terran. The walkers do very well agaisnt hordes of weak ground units, but they have no air attack yet can be targeted by air attacks.

And on the purple gas level - I forgot about the reapers... I had been ignoring them, thinking they weren't going to help much. But you are right, they throw grenades that do more damage against structures, so using them to take out the nearby base early would take the pressure off. The hard part is preventing the Protoss from sealing off any gas.

Posted by: Thanee Aug 11 2010, 01:08 PM

That should be pretty easy with Reapers, too. Just send a couple with an attack directly against the probe. The units guarding the probe are irrelevant as long as the probe dies. And losing a few Reapers... well... sacrifices have to be made.

And yeah, Colossi are fun. It looks pretty cool, when you have a dozen or so stomping an enemy base backed up by as many Void Rays.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Voran Aug 12 2010, 12:34 PM

That was a fun level. My approach was to completely ignore the main objective of 'harvest the gas' and focused entirely on building up a base so I could sortie and prevent gas capping. If you move early, instead of trying to respond to cap-notifications, you can clear the lower field pretty well and keep the Protoss stuck in their upper base. Though MAN that upper base is hard to clear, its got higher ground and scads of mechs. Still, it was amazingly satisfying to nuke that final base, get the 'mission complete' by making the Protoss run away.

Posted by: Voran Aug 12 2010, 12:36 PM

Also, man, I wish they just redid the original starcraft game with updated SC2 graphics. I tried to play the original (have the collectors edition, so had that pre-loaded USB) but quickly realized I became too used to modern graphics and mouse interfaces (like...map scrolling), plus vista made the graphics all funky.

Posted by: Karoline Aug 12 2010, 01:51 PM

Yeah, I was kind of thinking the same thing after a few missions in SC2 "It'd be nice if I could go back and play through the original ones without having to deal with the sometimes poor interface and such.

Posted by: TommyTwoToes Aug 12 2010, 07:14 PM

I played during the beta, and the user created multiplayer maps were pretty awesome (or completely horrible, no middle of the road). I am a big fan or Tower Defense types RTS's and there were quite a few built.

Posted by: StealthSigma Aug 12 2010, 08:13 PM

The "campaign" went from around 30 missions that all felt vaguely similar (in Starcraft) to 30 missions initially in Starcraft 2 to 29 unique feeling missions for Terran with likely another 58 missions in the next two expansions. Say what you want about split up the campaign but in reality what you're asking for is them shoving Starcraft, Brood War, and a non-existent second Starcraft expansion into a single game.

--



I attempted it 6 times while going for the Hard difficulty achievement and didn't come close, then it took me 3 tries on Hard without going for the achievement. Have fun on Hard. My piece of advice, attempting the Hard achievements on hard is typically harder than playing the map on Brutal. As it stands, this is the only mission specific achievement I don't have.

--



I found that a healthy infantry army ratio of 1 Marine to 1 Medic works miracles. Also, target Void Rays first.

--



I cleared it a couple nights ago on Brutal. It took me 1:21:21. When the map ended I had 3 SCVs, 1 Command Center, 1 Barracks, 1 Factory, and 4 Hellions.



Actually, there is a limit on how many units you can select at once. I believe I had 150 supply worth of Zerglings on a custom map once... I was able to select about 80% of them at once....

--



It's just an instant kill for mech units. She does massive damage against other units and has a psi-storm like ability for infantry.



Blowing up the worms is the easier strategic option.... having the air support on Hard made my life very, very difficult with the upgrades I had chosen.

Posted by: Thanee Aug 12 2010, 08:29 PM

I think it's quite playable still; gfx are dated, of course, but not that bad... not sure what you mean with the mouse, doesn't it work the same in SC1 and SC2? I havn't really noticed a difference... but then again, I always scroll with keys, since using the mouse for that is too slow.

I also have gfx irritations with Vista, but only in the menus. The game is totally fine. A 4:3 (i.e. non-wide) screen is really helpful, though.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Voran Aug 13 2010, 11:08 AM

Yknow, I just noticed hard difficulty forces you to play as 'fast' speed. For some reason I find that incredibly annoying. Like, forgive me if I want to yknow, ENJOY the fricken game I bought instead of having to rush my way through it. I don't even care about the achievements, but the complete LACK of an option to slow the hard difficulty game down to at least 'normal' speed makes me want to punch someone from Bliz.

Edit...wait a minute, does that mean I really HAVE 15 minutes when it says 'beat mission in under 15 minutes on hard' or is it like 10 minutes but with speeded up display? Cause that'd be cheap.

Posted by: Hocus Pocus Aug 15 2010, 06:53 AM

i like thos games and single game campaigns as well. i assume its 50 bucks, if so i guess i'll wait till it goes down to 20 or so. too rich for my blood.

Posted by: Thanee Aug 16 2010, 09:54 AM

Yep, she is quite mean, but still manageable, if you throw enough units at her and have some fully upgraded siege tanks behind to blast her.

Once I tried a group of cloaked banshees, but that didn't quite work out. Battlecruisers going all-out Yamato deal with her pretty quickly, though, still losing one or two against her meany attacks, however.



That's what I did (because I already had the upgraded towers, and because I figured, that the flyers have to come from outside, while the worms will spew units all over the place; so against flyers, defending seemed easier to me).

Bunch of missile towers and goliaths (all fully upgraded) plus some SCVs for repairs near the artifact and more turrets around the base, plus some bunkers and siege tanks and whatnot.

I also had a group of 16 or so vikings (fully upgraded, of course), some of them mercs, around to deal with flying threats. Those were golden.

Only used the artifact once in the end (and that wasn't even necessary, as it was on 99.9% already at that point and most of my base was still standing). Would have used it a few more times, if I had known about the achievement. Gotta have to play it again, I guess.

I researched the mind control tower, to try it out mostly, but that thing is completely worthless (as expected), since you have to trigger it manually, and Zerg simply are a horde army with few big guys worth mind controlling. It also does not have nearly enough range. I guess both of those defense towers are not really that useful. The slowdown tower is probably a better choice, however (at least near the bunkered chokepoints it will do some good).

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: StealthSigma Aug 16 2010, 03:14 PM

The mind control is better. A lot of people overlook why it's better.....

#1 - You're not limited to one tower (this is the major one that people miss).
#2 - It costs 50 energy to mind control (towers can have 200 energy).

Posted by: Dr.Rockso Aug 16 2010, 03:41 PM

Been playing since launch and...well, it's exactly as I expected(and hoped). I find the length of the campaign to be similar to the entire length of SC1's campaign(without broodwar, natch) and more engaging. I'm hoping that if they decide to charge a similar amount for the expansions as they did for WOL that they will deliver at least as much content(and by that I mean additional features, not just story) Disclaimer: Haven't beaten this badboy yet. Bout' to start the char missions. Very much enjoyed the secret mission, even though it was short.

Now, what I don't like: If you start with the campaign, you will likely feel cheated when you get to multiplayer. You'll want your spectres,firebats and wraiths. You'll miss your medics. You'll be on your knees begging for that sweet sweet tech reactor and the extended range on the bunkers. I understand it's all for balance, which is paramount in multiplayer. But you have to live without alot of those neat things they've been showing since the tech demo a couple years back. Also, as expected, single player still doesn't prepare you for multiplayer. Those challenges they added do, however. The opening gambit and rush defense ones were great practice for example.

I hear you, I had a lot of trouble with that mission. I had to restart 4 or 5 times at least. I realized that Missle Turrets can target those giant Colossi, which helped a bit. If your willing to lose a couple of units, have a group of marines and medics run in and just take out the probe. The rest of the attack squad will usually stop chasing after awhile.

Also, happy belated birthday Karoline

Posted by: Dr.Rockso Aug 16 2010, 03:49 PM

I find normal speed a bit slow, honestly. But I started on Hard, so that's likely why. Hard lives up to it's namesake: It can be tough as nails, at times. If they say you have 15 mins, you have 15 mins. But to compensate the enemy plays better, with more forces at their disposal. It will feel like less because they are pummelling you so much more.

Posted by: StealthSigma Aug 16 2010, 03:53 PM

Colossus are well countered by Vikings, if you have them.

It's important to note that the major differences between difficulty lies in frequency and amount of units sent and the health of the AI's units. As far as I can tell, their damage hasn't been altered at all. A colossus on Brutal is just as deadly as a colossus on Casual. The difference would be that in casual the AI rarely uses Colossus, while the Brutal AI will almost always use colossus. A 1:1 Marine:Medic ball can easily take out colossus on Brutal with enough in the ball. There's only a few units that badly hurt this tactic, mostly the siege tank in siege mode or multiple high templars. There's also some missions where this tactic is less useful because of time constraints preventing you from massing enough (Supernova) or the mission dictates you must use something else to succeed (The Great Train Robbery/Maw of the Void).

Posted by: Dr.Rockso Aug 16 2010, 04:00 PM

Oh I know, Collossi aren't that tough with the right counters. It's that when most people get to this mission you are outclassed. You don't have any air support at all. Goliaths turn out to be kind of overrated(and expensive) and you have to fight off them sealing geysers AND defend against attack waves.

Posted by: StealthSigma Aug 16 2010, 08:21 PM

It all depends on how you play the game. Each arc is -mostly- independent of each other. The only exception is that Mara Sara missions must be beaten first, The Dig from the Artifact arc must be beaten to unlock the Prophecy arc, and you have to complete the Artifact arc to get access to the Char arc. Otherwise, any problem you have with not continuing an arc is a matter of not completing enough missions.

You have the three Mar Sara missions, the Artifact arc, the Prophecy arc, the Covert arc, the Colonist arc, the Rebellion arc, and the Char arc. The order which you do the missions dictates what upgrades/units are available to you. Once you've completed a mission it's locked to those units/upgrades that you had in that time.

For example, I believe it to be possible to construct Battlecruisers for that mission as long as you beat Maw of the Void prior. You can most certainly get Vikings for that mission if you do the Colonist arc and complete Safe Haven or Haven's Fall.

Posted by: Thanee Aug 17 2010, 08:12 AM

Played Normal first, now playing Brutal.

Trust me, Hard is just a walk in the park.

Some missions on Brutal are just crazy. You really have to play fast and do everything right, otherwise you get thrashed. Badly!

For example, when I played the third mission (after you got the first piece of the artifact and have to protect it until you get extracted), I ended with my whole base being overrun by Zerg and two of my buildings flying around somewhere in different directions away from the main battle (I lifted them early to get distance between the attackers and my buidlings), both under attack and only seconds away from being destroyed. Clooooose call!

But I think my defenses could have been better there.

Likewise the one where you protect the colonist transports while they depart to the spaceport. You really have to build a huge force there quickly, otherwise no chance against the masses of Zerg rushing in. And if you do not exactly know where to look for them, just forget about secondary targets... there is no time for searching the map.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: DocTaotsu Aug 17 2010, 08:21 AM

Did someone mention Homeworld?!
*Starts twitching uncontrollably with nerd joy*

Yeah... i really wish Relic would get back on the horse and make a worthy successor. Homeworld is easily one of the greatest all around games I've ever played and Cataclysm told one of the best stories in gaming history.

Posted by: Voran Aug 17 2010, 11:29 AM

I did find it useful to run through all of Zeratul's mission chain when i had access to it, the accumulation of +protoss and +zerg research makes a huge difference, just make sure you do the normal round of 'check on npc talk options' aboard the hyperion every time you finish a crystal mission.

Obviously crystal missions won't give you credits for armory upgrades or mercs, but i think you can get what...half of each research tree by doing the missions?

Posted by: Karoline Aug 17 2010, 01:05 PM

More or less half. Think you end up with slightly over for Protoss and slightly under for Zerg.

That (last?) mission where you have to kill 3k enemies or whatever kicked my butt when I tried it the first time, then I just moved back into the main missions, and then my sound went out, so I haven't played since it is hard to keep up without the notifications that your base is being attacked and stuff like that. (And you don't get to hear all the great voice acting)

Also, hard is faster than the other modes? Huh, didn't know that since that's the only mode I've played so far.

Posted by: Thanee Aug 17 2010, 01:09 PM

Yep, and they are a nice change, too.

On my current (second) campaign playthrough on Brutal, I definitely plan on using those early (because it does not matter when you do those missions, as your tech upgrades and mercs have no influence on them; OTOH, as you say, the research bonuses are quite valuable; there are some researchable upgrades, that really make a difference).

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Voran Aug 17 2010, 10:47 PM

I was disappointed with the 'panther mech' looking anti-zerg upgrade path tho. Next time around I may just go with the big ubertransport. The panthermechs even on normal are way too fragile to send out against the zerglings or mass attacks. Even with a pack of them, and then i find it just becomes more useful to use a bunker with 6 marines and a seige tank backup.

Posted by: Thanee Aug 17 2010, 11:01 PM

Too bad, I was hoping they were useful against mass attacks (as advertised ), actually.

Had the transport on my first playthrough, and it's neat, but you don't really need it. There is one mission, where it comes in really handy, though.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Dumori Aug 17 2010, 11:27 PM

All three are awesome. And each has totally different focuses and plots. The story as a whole is almost your classic fantasy plots. Taking back what was your peoples, awaking an "otherworldly" evil, and the hunt the macguffins to save the "world".

Homeworld one and 2 have a very fleet like scale. Cataclysm has a much smaller scale. In homeworld 1 you are all alone in two part of a bigger machine, but the leading part and in Cataclysm your outsiders to your own people who stumble on something. I could go on about the differences that makes each game unique and compelling games but I shall not.

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 18 2010, 12:41 AM

QFTGDT - Quoted For The God-Damned Truth

Posted by: DocTaotsu Aug 18 2010, 12:57 AM

To be fair, Relic doesn't actually own the rights anymore and the guy who ran herd on the series has moved on to other pastures. Last I read Sierra/Vivendi were busy stuffing the license up their ass and making jack all with it.

I won't cry if Dumori goes on about what makes the HW series great... because I wish RTS designers would be as dedicated to storytelling as they are to multiplayer game balance. I'll just say that I loved the original HW manual and felt that the only misstep was recasting the voice of fleet command in the second game.

That said, I really do want to play SC2, I've always had a softspot for the other Warhammer game.

Posted by: Voran Aug 18 2010, 05:46 AM

Hehe, yeah, its Warhammer without all the seriousness. I enjoy the Dawn of War series and the DW2 series (though I kinda wish they went back to dw1 type rts) but sometimes its just so damned gloomy.

Posted by: Karoline Aug 18 2010, 01:43 PM

Warhammer is gloomier than SC? I don't know about that. SC has Mansk sacrifice an entire planet to the Zerg to gain personal power, WH has the main character sacrifice an entire planet because there are some corrupt people on it. SC has a race of genetically engineered creatures with biological weapons that want to eradicate all life for their own ends and is controlled by a greater intelligence that requires specialized creatures to relay its psyonic signal to lesser creatures, WH has a race of genetically engineered creatures with biological weapons that want to eradicate all life for their own ends and is controlled by a greater intelligence that requires specialized creatures to relay its psyonic signal to lesser creatures.

Still, I can't help but notice just how similar the Zerg and Tyranid are, like to absurd levels. Their most iconic unit are near identical (Zergling/Hormagaunt) in ability, number, strength, toughness, and appearance. Whenever I see something like that I wonder if one copied the other, or if they both copied something else, or if it was truly coincidence.

Posted by: Thanee Aug 18 2010, 03:08 PM

AFAIK, StarCraft was meant to be a Warhammer franchise game first, but that deal didn't come through.

Blizzard definitely copies a lot. So the similarity is everything, but certainly not a coincidence.

None of their games have been truly innovative (WarCraft and StarCraft are Dune 2 done right; World of Warcraft is EverQuest plus casual-friendliness; Diablo is Rogue/Hack/Angband with decent graphics (ok, not anymore, but at their time)).

Of course, both species have also been inspired strongly by Giger.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Mooncrow Aug 18 2010, 03:22 PM

Blizzard basically copied Games Workshop's IP wholsale fro Warcraft and Starcraft after GW decided to backburner their video game stuff. They've worked hard at creating their own backstory, etc since then, but the original ideas are all GW.

And the Warhammer 40,000 fluff is some of the most brutal and depressing stuff I've ever read. Forget destroying planets, WH's human civilization is basically run on human sacrifice, and the insane level of tyranny is basically the only way that humanity has been able to survive. Any hint of corruption is justification for scouring the planet - back when they tried to be more humane about it, they would end up losing another planet at best, sometimes whole sectors at worst. When a single mind can serve as a gateway for an army of horrors, keeping an iron grip on those minds takes on a new meaning.

/shudder. Going to watch something happy now and put WH40k out of mind.

Posted by: DocTaotsu Aug 18 2010, 07:49 PM

GW hired Blizzard to start making computers games for them and then... I guess they decided not to but Blizzard already had some solid game design so they just pushed ahead and made Warcraft and Starcraft.

40k is a whole is a billions times more depressing than SC. SC is like... Real World depressing, people sacrifice planets for questionable reason and an oppressive regime rules the lion share of humanity.

Unless I'm missing something, there really isn't an opposition to the human Imperium in WH. You're either with them or an alien/mutants getting boltered into orbit. WH always struck me as uh... kinda like space Dark Ages whereas SC was always like "Neo-Neocolonialism" where we stomped on "lesser' races and took their stuff but hey! At least were in space right?

Posted by: TommyTwoToes Aug 18 2010, 07:57 PM

WH40K is actually the Renaissance, the Dark Ages were worse. Planets were cut off from each other by warp storms, there were more mutants and psychers running around, more supperstition. Even the glory days of the Imperium (during the Great Crusade), things were dark but at least there was some optimism.

If you get a chance, the Horus Heresey series that details the fall of the space marine legions and betrayal of Horus are really pretty good. You can see the train wreck coming, its just over the horizon, and everyone is rushing towards it.

Posted by: Voran Aug 18 2010, 09:27 PM

Yeah, I find the heroes in Starcraft more 'big damn heroes' while the heroes of Warhammer ...well..they're better than grunts. For the Emperor! in the 40k setting has just the same level of honorable behavior and meaningful self sacrifice as it would as if Palpatine was the Emperor. The Blood Ravens, as cool as they are, aren't really sympathetic characters, they'll murder civilians, military forces, heck anyone that is in their way. Only in absurdly rare situations do they team up with xenos to combat greater threats, most of the time its 'burn them all'.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the 40k setting, just if you stop to think about it too much, its a little creepy. You're playing the worst possible zealots, with no room for questioning. I mean, Inquisitors, seriously? That's a sign your culture isn't really on the up and up.

Posted by: Dumori Aug 18 2010, 10:29 PM

I think the core think in 40k is every race is dystopian in some way. Though chaos and orks brake that mould. Both of them seam quite happy with there lot in the universe. Eldar are dieing slowly and have been for 1000s of years and if they die with out a soulstone they are fucked. Tau are "communism" taken too far every thing even breeding is dictated by their leaders for the grater good each cast are practically a different species. The Imperium of man is fighting losing wars against every one else and that's really the best they can do seeing as most xeno races are at their necks or aiming to use them as pawns. Even the Necrons got jealous and signed their race to serving as puppets to the c'tan. The C'tan discover that while start can feed them sentient life tastes so much better.

The only races who aren't depressing on backstory or how they live are really the Orks and Tyranids. The Orks LOVE how they live and the Tyranids also are in that boat.

Posted by: toturi Aug 18 2010, 11:58 PM

Notice the Eldar are always a dying race. But... they never die out.

Posted by: Voran Aug 19 2010, 01:02 AM

Heh, yeah, oddly I enjoy playing the orks the most, their glee at just existing is contagious. MOAR DAKKA!

Posted by: Karoline Aug 19 2010, 03:33 AM

Hmm, lets see...

Imperium are a group of ultra fanatic religious warriors who are genetically derived from God.
Chaos are the offshoots of Imperium that decided demonic power was cooler than their living God.
Eldar are a 'dying' race that never seems to actually manage to die off because they are willing to sacrifice billions of humans to save a few of their own.
Dark Eldar are Eldar with fewer morals.
Orks (Orcs?) breed like rodents and fight for the fun of it.
Necrons sold their souls for undying bodies.
Tau are... I don't know that communist quite fits... it's like communism that actually works because the top brass is actually concerned about the greater good instead of just themselves. They also seem to have the greatest aptitude for technology.
Tyranids are like the Zerg on steroids and crack and awesome sauce.

I suppose WH40k is fairly depressing.

Still think it is awesome though

Posted by: Mooncrow Aug 19 2010, 05:36 AM

You're mixing up the Eldar and Dark Eldar a bit there^^ The Eldar simply don't care about the rest of the races; while they wouldn't bat an eye at killing a billion humans, they don't do it as a sacrifice or anything. The Dark Eldar, on the other hand, believe that by offering up souls of other races they forestall their own deaths.

It's ironic though, fluff-wise I hate the Dark Eldar more than any other race, but it's the one army I actually do well with >< With my beloved Eldar army, I'm lucky to break over 50/50 - with the DE it's closer to 85/15

Posted by: Mäx Aug 19 2010, 07:12 AM

Your miss understanding what he meant, if it will save even one Eldar life somewhere in the next 1000 years the Eldar will quite willingly arrange the death of billions of humans.

Posted by: Thanee Aug 19 2010, 07:19 AM

Seems like a fair trade...

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Dumori Aug 19 2010, 04:24 PM

The Tau have also evolved exceedingly fast from discovering fire to space flight and tech well in Sci-Fi in 4000 years. There are also pretty solid rumours that the Tau are exceedingly racist in respect to the other members of the Tau empire. Also communism is an ideal and while humans have failed with it it dosen't stop it from being used to term Tau society. The reason I used "" is that there is no equality the ethirals are born in to power full stop. Every one has a place from birth more or less as well.

Also don't forget the old ones. Who defently made the Orks and Eldar before the increased psychic presences in the universe caused the warp to spawn nasty that took their toll on them while they where deep in war with the necrons(or what every they where before that). The Old one are also rumour to have had an effect on life on earth and maybe other planets as well. Plus there's always the chance they are still some where in the universe surviving in some form.

Posted by: DocTaotsu Aug 19 2010, 05:50 PM

I've heard rumors of vast god ships... ships forged in the blood and flesh of fallen races and tasked with the consumption of all sentient life...

Er wait, wrong universe. My bad.

Posted by: Karoline Aug 19 2010, 09:06 PM

No, that'd be the Tyranid

Posted by: DocTaotsu Aug 19 2010, 09:28 PM

LOL, totally forgot about genestealers. They're like organic reapers ... or Reapers are organic Genocide AI's

Posted by: Doc Chase Aug 19 2010, 09:53 PM

Psh. The original Underpants Gnomes. Stealin' jeans like that.

...Why's everyone looking at me like that?

Posted by: Karoline Aug 19 2010, 11:03 PM

So, playing SC without sound isn't as bad as I thought it would be. I finally beat that stupid gas level by using a pack of Thors. The level after (I went with Nova) was super fun, totally made up for the other suckier levels.

After I got past that I totally flew through the levels to the final level. Was doing well till QoB showed up the second time and I didn't notice till she had powered through my defenses.

Posted by: nemafow Aug 20 2010, 04:21 AM

Multiplayer is as much fun as the original. I however did need to change the way I played with Zerg in multiplayer from SC1, Zerglings aren't very good anymore.

- infact I don't build them at all anymore, unless I need a meatshield quickly.

Posted by: Karoline Aug 20 2010, 04:47 AM

Haven't tried the multiplayer yet. I do kind of notice that zerglings don't seem to be nearly as cool as they used to be though from killing them for so long.

Oh, and funny story, for some reason my cut scenes stopped working. Anyone else have this problem with the patch or something? I didn't realize it was happening at first, and couldn't figure out why everyone was mad at me for

Posted by: nemafow Aug 20 2010, 06:31 AM

I should really get around to finishing the single player campaign, but I havent noticed any issues with my cut scenes from the patches in the few times I've played.

I guess the only way I've got Zerglings to work is very early in the game, where you dig them in at a bottleneck and literally wait for the enemy to walk ontop of them. But its a very limited strategy, I prefer mass Roaches and some Hydralisks, Roaches rule.

Posted by: Thanee Aug 20 2010, 10:08 AM

Oh, still no working driver found? Well, at least there's the message log.



Gas Level? That "breath of creation"/"terrazine" stuff?

A big group of Goliaths (16 or so) plus a bunch of SCVs for in-combat repairs worked very well for me.

That's also where I am right now on my second playthrough... that one is rather tough on Brutal.



Yeah, the Nova level (also went with her, she is so much cooler than that Tosh guy ) was very nice.



Heh. Yeah, she can be pretty tough. And you do not hear the warnings... have to have a close watch on the minimap then, I guess.


No issues here, either.



Bye
Thanee

Posted by: StealthSigma Aug 20 2010, 01:40 PM

Marines + Medics! Just make sure you have the Medic upgrade that they don't require tech labs to build.

I played Engine of Destruction on brutal, trying to win by letting the odin mostly take out the bases with wraiths to knock out dangerous targets. That didn't work so well. So I just ended up constantly building Battlecruisers and I won the map easily enough. Did the same thing with Media Blitz, Battlecruisers. After knocking out all the bases, I just started massing a bunch of battlecruisers. I ended up with 195/200 supply on the map, which included 12 Marines, 2 Siegebreakers, and about 8 SCVs while the rest was Battlecruisers. Easy. I'm down to four missions left on Brutal; In Utter Darkness, The Invasion of Char, All In, and the final mission where you knock out the space platform (I had done Belly of the Beast on my previous campaign).

Posted by: Karoline Aug 20 2010, 01:53 PM

Yeah, finally took it in to a repair place today, they couldn't figure it out right away, but they're looking at it. I really don't want to send it in to acer because then I won't have it for a couple weeks, and it isn't under warranty any more, so it'll likely cost a ton too.

Yep, that's the level. Goliaths don't seem to do as well with those anti-armor ray ships running around on the higher difficulties. Then again, they were murdering my Thors anyway since they do fairly sucky air damage.

Yep, she is fairly easy to notice there, so I've gotten used to scanning the MM more often (likely a good thing) and the message does come up on my screen that says 'class 12 psychic etc' so after a couple more tries I've noticed it. I still have problems with the overlords dropping stuff behind my front lines because I don't get the under attack messages.

Yeah, realized that when I talked to him, but it was still a big 'WTF?' moment.

Posted by: nemafow Aug 24 2010, 11:57 PM

So I finally got around to finishing the campaign on the weekend, little pissed off though (not relevant to the campaign) as I got logged off about 8+ missions before the end, so did not get a -single- achievement for finishing those levels. Too lazy to go back and finish it again ^.^ that takes time off my SC2 multiplayer time.

Posted by: Thanee Aug 25 2010, 06:03 PM

Hmmm? I had the same problem when I was playing the arcade machine Lost Viking (the best before that was bronze level, making it to the third level, but not beyond; this time I made it to level 12, with solid gold).

But, some hours later, when the achievement server was back on, I got my achievements in there.

Maybe you got them, and you just don't know it? Maybe check the Mission Archive or Achievements page.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Dr.Rockso Aug 25 2010, 06:32 PM

Unfortunately you can't back-fill achievements. Something similar happened to me and I never got the achievements. Had to go back and replay em'. Maybe you got yours later because you were still logged in and it was the achievement server that was down?

Posted by: Thanee Aug 25 2010, 07:37 PM

No, I didn't have them when I logged out, and I later logged in and out again, still nothing... and laaater, I suddenly had them. *shrug*

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: nemafow Aug 26 2010, 02:51 AM

Nah, still says I dont have the achievements - and on my profile page says I havent finished the campaign


On another note, fisty, is this you?
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/181/starcraft-2/zerg-multiplayer-guide-starcraft-2-a-847811/

Posted by: Thanee Aug 26 2010, 09:27 AM

Well, that's too bad.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: StealthSigma Aug 26 2010, 12:17 PM

Blizzard has done retroactive achievement granting in World of Warcraft based on factors other than you completed this achievement right now.

For example, if you had completed the quest Draconic for Dummies, you would have been given the achievement for clearing the Onyxia and Molten Core raids when the achievement system first went live.

There are a few achievements that I can think of that can be retroactively granted in SC2.

All the upgrade achievements. They can easily check if you have the upgrades already completed.
Hard/Brutal 5/10/15/20/25. I've noticed those achievements have had some issues, but they can cross check them with your progress on the achievement to beat every mission on Hard/Brutal. If you have 25 missions on that achievement, they could give you the Hard/Brutal 25 achievement.

Also, in case you didn't know....

You can tell if someone in your game has a Collector's Edition, as long as they build a Thor. All CE players have a different Thor model.

http://www.starcraft2units.org/wp-content/uploads/thor.jpg
http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/30/1319154-thor_super.png

Posted by: nemafow Aug 29 2010, 04:02 AM

Nice, I didnt know that about the Thor. I wish I had the Collectors edition, but they sold so fast around here that I missed out.

Posted by: Thanee Aug 29 2010, 05:27 PM

Yep, I ordered mine like half a year ago to be certain to get one.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: nemafow Aug 30 2010, 08:40 AM

I usually order the games I desperately want, but for what ever reason I didnt for SC2, very unusual for me. I guess in my mind I couldn't beleive it was coming out, its been something I've been looking forward for for over 10+ years.

Kind of like Duke Nukem 'Forever'.

Posted by: StealthSigma Aug 30 2010, 03:59 PM

There's also a Mini-Thor pet if you have a World of Warcraft account on the same B.net account as Starcraft 2. I swear, it increases my DPS by 100.

Posted by: Dr.Rockso Aug 30 2010, 04:18 PM

I've just noticed there are a bunch of us on the boards who play. Would anyone be up to forming a 'clan' of sorts? Or just having regular/semi-regular meetups and then beating the snot out of each other for bragging rights?

Posted by: nemafow Aug 31 2010, 03:18 AM

I'm always eager for a game, but I doubt anyone would be available in my time zone AEST.

Posted by: Thanee Aug 31 2010, 04:09 PM

The bigger problem might be the region divide.

US players cannot play with Europe or Asian players, because they are all in seperate regions (unless you get the game multiple times, that is).

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Dumori Aug 31 2010, 06:18 PM

Really that is a bit shit.

Posted by: Tanegar Aug 31 2010, 06:49 PM

A bit? Son, that right there is a turd the size of Mount Rushmore.

Posted by: Karoline Sep 2 2010, 05:32 AM

That sucks about the region stuff. My name is the same in SC as here, if anyone wants to look me up. Think my character code is... 745? Yeah, it is.

Posted by: nemafow Sep 2 2010, 11:16 PM

Oh yeah I forgot about the region thing, it costs $5 to buy another battlenet login for another region, I really didn't like how they set that up :/

Posted by: Karoline Sep 3 2010, 04:11 AM

Well, it is nice that they at least provide some means of it, but it kind of sucks that you can't just... you know, go to other regions like you used to be able to.

Posted by: nemafow Sep 3 2010, 05:07 AM

Yeah, I heard some pr0 players having a whinge, because they can't fight against different regions players to get some diversity on tactics, as different regions play differently to others.

Btw glad to see your still alive Karoline

Posted by: Thanee Sep 3 2010, 09:09 AM

Havn't heard about that $5 option, yet (and cannot find anything in my account to do that either; how do you get there?).

I did know that they were planning to have some way to soften the region borders somewhat, though.

I guess there were a lot of complaints about that.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Karoline Sep 5 2010, 03:49 AM

Thanks for the concern

I do have a tendency to drop off every once in a while, I'm very moody like that. It's usually a combination of being interested in other things for a while and having no concept of time, and not realizing it's been a couple weeks since I last posted

Posted by: nemafow Sep 6 2010, 01:00 AM

Heh sorry I don't know where to do it yet either tbh, but I remember it being mentioned as an official SC2 comment, perhaps it hasnt been setup yet?
Or perhaps you need to purchase a separate account per region (and can't upgrade your current)?




Heh all good, just glad your back for Shadowwars

Posted by: Hocus Pocus Oct 1 2010, 09:13 PM

well i bought this game today. damn 65 bucks. But I decided to reward myself nontheless. If this is like warcraft 3 then it will be well worth it, in terms of gameplay and all. Haven't installed it yet, gonna wait till after the wife yells at me for buying it, with the palet cleansed then I will enjoy.

Posted by: Thanee Oct 2 2010, 06:27 AM

Fortunately it is not like WarCraft 3. It is much better!

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Hocus Pocus Oct 2 2010, 04:11 PM

I decided not to tell the wife. I've only played 3 missions so far, gonna try and pace myself to make it last. Its reputation proceeds itself, the game so far is all i expected and more. Great graphics, interesting storyline, characters and music. Looks like you can get certain achievements for each mission (like playing on easy, intermediate, or hard mode). The game seems to be well worth the dough.


The down side is you have to have a battlenet account to even play the game. When I installed I was amazed that you had to register before playing. I put the game on my account I already had on WOW when blizzard forced me to merge my wow account with battle net. You have to log onto the battle net account before playing the game and sure enough, i see my real name on it. If I knew this little tidbit, I definately would not have bought the game, my own picadillos and paranoia about having that info for peeps to see. It is unfortunate, but it seems it might be the case with all blizzard games.

the game is definately worth the money, if you are not a crank tin foil hat wearing crack pot like I am, having personal information on display isn't bad at all. I give it 4 thumbs up, 5 if i can somehow take all that private info off.

Posted by: Karoline Oct 2 2010, 06:05 PM

On the bright side, it doesn't actually display your real name to other people. You have to do something special to have them see that. I think if they're an account friend as opposed to just a WoW or Bnet friend they can see it, but just random people you are playing with, and even your normal friends, won't see you're real name.

Posted by: Thanee Oct 2 2010, 09:49 PM

Yep, only your "Real ID Friends" (i.e. when you add someone to your friends list not by username but by email and the other person agrees to it) can see your real name.

Bye
Thanee

Posted by: Hocus Pocus Oct 29 2010, 07:34 PM

Well i finished the campagin awhile back. It still reatians my 4 out of 5 thumbs up raiting, still hate that I have to log on to play the game. New complaint was that it was way too short and it was in danger of dropping to 3 out of 5 thumbs, but then i realise that most games nowdays are not like they used to be so I forgave them.

I've just been playing the A.I. and have yet to play a real person for battles. the 3 play co op is kinda fun. Getting all the achievements for each mission is alright though can be frustrating at times.

as before good game if you got 65 bucks to burn.

Posted by: Thanee Oct 30 2010, 12:35 AM

I find, that the higher difficulties add quite some replayability. And then there are the Challenges.

It's quite ok for content.

As for logging on... I think you do not need to. You can play the single player campaign as a "guest", which is playing offline.

Bye
Thanee