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[Zzoram]

I just checked out the interview they had up at IGN, and apparently Blizzard is very conscious of the people who enjoy the game but suck at it. They said that more will be revealed about how they're gonna be friendlier to the more casual player as they talk more about the new Battle.net, but they did say that they're working to make more modes where many players will work cooperatively against the AI so that it will be, quote, "...less about winning and more about learning."

This is very very good news to a player like me.

Apparently there will be challenge modes to teach you things that are useful for online play, while the campaign is all about their story and creating a different experience.

 

[Guled]

I just checked out the interview they had up at IGN, and apparently Blizzard is very conscious of the people who enjoy the game but suck at it. They said that more will be revealed about how they're gonna be friendlier to the more casual player as they talk more about the new Battle.net, but they did say that they're working to make more modes where many players will work cooperatively against the AI so that it will be, quote, "...less about winning and more about learning."

This is very very good news to a player like me.



When they say they have "no plans to support lan," what the hell are we SUPPOSED to be thinking?

all they need is a no rush 20min mode lol

 

[autobzooty]

Apparently there will be challenge modes to teach you things that are useful for online play, while the campaign is all about their story and creating a different experience.

Good! I was really hoping there would be a more in-depth learning process. I love RTS games, but I'm so unbelievably shit at them that it can sometimes spoil my own fun.

 

[dLMN8R]

When they say they have "no plans to support lan," what the hell are we SUPPOSED to be thinking?

"Gee, that must be a weird quote that doesn't exactly mean what we think, so let's apply common sense to the situation to reach a logical conclusion"

Something called "LAN MODE" will probably be replaced with standard matchmaking lobbies coordinated through Battle.net that allow matches to be detected over the local network, with or without an active internet connection when local play is involved.

There was also the "Spawn copy" mode that the original Starcraft had.

 

[Zzoram]

"Gee, that must be a weird quote that doesn't exactly mean what we think, so let's apply common sense to the situation to reach a logical conclusion"

Something called "LAN MODE" will probably be replaced with standard matchmaking lobbies coordinated through Battle.net that allow matches to be detected over the local network, with or without an active internet connection when local play is involved.

There was also the "Spawn copy" mode that the original Starcraft had.

You can't seriously think they would do that for Starcraft 2. Not a chance.

 

[Won]

Good! I was really hoping there would be a more in-depth learning process. I love RTS games, but I'm so unbelievably shit at them that it can sometimes spoil my own fun.

The tech tree screens on the previous page already show tips, tutorials, etc. tabs for newcomers.
Can't wait to work through them and create some anti-newbie strategy. Muhahaha.

Something called "LAN MODE" will probably be replaced with standard matchmaking lobbies coordinated through Battle.net that allow matches to be detected over the local network, with or without an active internet connection when local play is involved.

 

[Littleberu]

Good! I was really hoping there would be a more in-depth learning process. I love RTS games, but I'm so unbelievably shit at them that it can sometimes spoil my own fun.

Then play the many Use Maps Settings that will inevitably spawn.

 

[autobzooty]

"Gee, that must be a weird quote that doesn't exactly mean what we think, so let's apply common sense to the situation to reach a logical conclusion"

Something called "LAN MODE" will probably be replaced with standard matchmaking lobbies coordinated through Battle.net that allow matches to be detected over the local network, with or without an active internet connection when local play is involved.

There was also the "Spawn copy" mode that the original Starcraft had.

sounds like wishful thinking, to me.

Something called "LAN MODE" will probably be replaced with standard matchmaking lobbies coordinated through Battle.net that allow matches to be detected over the local network, with or without an active internet connection when local play is involved.

wat

 

[Blizzard]

Something called "LAN MODE" will probably be replaced with standard matchmaking lobbies coordinated through Battle.net that allow matches to be detected over the local network, with or without an active internet connection when local play is involve.

This sentence confuses me. Are you suggesting that Battle.net (an internet login/authentication system, unless I'm greatly mistaken) will be used to handle play over LANs when no internet access is available?

 

[dLMN8R]

Who knows? I'm just rambling random ideas. All I know is that LAN play is what made Starcraft as huge as it is, Blizzard has already said that something in Battle.net will make up for it missing, and I doubt they'd be stupid enough to take out the feature without first replacing it with something even more capable.

Activate with Battle.net once to verify your account, then you can set up matchmaking lobbies regardless of your active internet connection maybe?

 

[autobzooty]

Who knows? I'm just rambling random ideas. All I know is that LAN play is what made Starcraft as huge as it is, Blizzard has already said that something in Battle.net will make up for it missing, and I doubt they'd be stupid enough to take out the feature without first replacing it with something even more capable.

Activate with Battle.net once to verify your account, then you can set up matchmaking lobbies regardless of your active internet connection maybe?

that's what i was kinda hoping for, but you'd think they would have mentioned something like that to cushion the blow a bit. "we have no plans to support lan" is kinda all encompassing and doesn't leave much hope... :\

 

[dLMN8R]

that's what i was kinda hoping for, but you'd think they would have mentioned something like that to cushion the blow a bit. "we have no plans to support lan" is kinda all encompassing and doesn't leave much hope... :\

I'm sure Blizzard is intentionally holding back details because they don't want to say anything about the new Battle.net yet. They also know that, once they do say stuff about Battle.net, this NRTOTW will be another relic of the past just like every other.

 

[Scrow]

all they need is a no rush 20min mode lol

i can't harrass the enemy for 20 minutes? my god that sounds boring!

i'm not a good player at all, but i couldn't stand playing the game for 20 minutes where all i do is collect resources, build buildings an amass an army.

i like to send out 3 zealots to harrass the economy, maybe kill a few marines/zerglings, take out a supply depot/pylon.

 

[NZNova]

"We have no plans to support LAN" most likely means, we have no plans to support completely standalone LAN. i.e. every client must connect to battle.net and authenticate. Chances are you will find that you can still play a local game with game packets going on your LAN rather than out to the battle.net servers and back. Otherwise, it would suck having a 300ms ping to someone else sitting in your house. Of course, that's just speculation on my part - maybe I'm completely wrong and every single packet has to go through battle.net. Sucky, but you can blame piracy for that...

 

[The_Inquisitor]

Just ran the beta opt in program. If I got into the beta I would cry sweet tears of joy.

 

[Fragamemnon]

Zerg need scourge. I really dislike that they got rid of them-it was a very flavorful and useful unit that always caused a lot of tension and fun in a game. They were even useful in all three matchups.

 

[Malfunky]

Since we have no idea when beta is..

Finding a good game for SC1 on Battle.net is impossible. Everybody plays money maps and nonstop BGH. Even then, they all lag like crazy. I'm on 10 Mbps. Not exactly the fastest, but it's up there. You think it be enough to run a game built for 28k modems.

Anybody want to start a thread in the online forum or something? I'm not terribly good by the way, so I don't want any pros begging for a match. :lol

 

[Scrow]

i honestly can't believe the beta isn't launched yet. i thought for sure it was starting at the beginning of this week.

i'm crushed

 

[-COOLIO-]

Since we have no idea when beta is..

Finding a good game for SC1 on Battle.net is impossible. Everybody plays money maps and nonstop BGH. Even then, they all lag like crazy. I'm on 10 Mbps. Not exactly the fastest, but it's up there. You think it be enough to run a game built for 28k modems.

Anybody want to start a thread in the online forum or something? I'm not terribly good by the way, so I don't want any pros begging for a match. :lol

lol the gt vids inspired me to play some sc and i was having the same problem today

 

[Zhuk]

I'm looking forward to these 'friendlier' modes, I personally have always preferred co-op style matches in multiplayer RTS.

 

[Justin]

This is what the whole "no lan" thing really is.

Blizzard Dev 1: "Oh no... the game isnt going to be ready from the end of the year! How do we delay for another 6 months it without pissing off the fans???

Blizzard Dev 2: "I know! Lets say that we are not including a feature that the fans expect will be in the game and there is really no reason to take out, then where there is outrage over its removal we can say that due to overwhelming response we are delaying the game to add the feature. The fans will LOVE US!

Blizzard Dev 1: Genius!

 

[Louminater]

"we've got a great beta comin out for you guys really really soon...."

edit: nm, that was made a while ago...

 

[DreamMachine]

Blizzard responds the the Lan Issue

http://www.starcraft-fans.com/page/Blizzard+Responds+to+No+LAN+Support

 

[maniac-kun]

sounds logical for them to not have an lan mode so that pirates cant play the game in mp

 

[woxel1]

Blizzard giveth snazzy looking beta icons on various US account pages, taketh LAN play away.

 

[Morbid Angel]

Our first excitement
Even though we saw a slightly older SC2 build (the April 2009 build at the WarCraft III regional finals from 26/06 - 28/06 in Cologne 2009), there is not much to say, except: WOHOOOOOOOOOOOO! This game is going to ROCK!!! And I really mean ROCK! Words can hardly describe what feeling you have playing this game for the first time! Remember your first date? – This goes into the right direction.

We had lots and lots of fun testing the game and we did it for a long time since there was no time limitation for our matches. The room unfortunately only had ten PCs running StarCraft I - not enough at all - and everyone at the regional finals wanted to play the game. I remember the last match between grrrrr and me where we nearly played 45 minutes. I had the chance to use some of the units from the late game, of which we've only have seen a few from the Battle Reports (or none at all?).

I haven’t put much focus on the individual unit costs, as this is still not the beta and I believe those points are going to change or have already changed up to today.

This was the absolutely first time I (and grrrrr as well) had the opportunity to play StarCraft II and see the action we wanted to see live instead of a nice and finely tuned Battle Report. I have concentrated primarily on the Protoss and I played four matches, of which three was against grrrrr. I have to admit that I lost 2 games: The one game I did win was only because grrrrr played Zerg, which he is a noob at. We did some voice recording during the matches, and it's still funny to listen to them as you can hear my excitement in my voice.


Back to business then
The available maps at this event were:

* 1on1: Blistering Sands 176x152, Mar Sara Wasteland map set
* 1on1: Kulas Ravine, 192x192, Bel'Shir Jungle map set
* 2on2: Lost Temple 160x160, Bel'Shir Jungle map set
* 2on2: New Antioch 176x184, Shakuras Wasteland map set

Playing as Protoss Is Cool!
I believe I haven't even seen 25% of the tactical possibilities available. Just imagining the advanced mobility of the “new” Protoss, I am excited to see crazy what strategies will come out when the Beta has launched! First, however, over to my experience with the Protoss:


Probe

Let's start off with the basic unit: the Probe. You will start the games having six of them available. One key element is your Probes seem to be of more importance than ever before! Losing some of them, or a whole batch seems even more critical for your success than in SC1! I found it really, really hard to build up my eco again after I lost half of my Probes, so they need to be looked after in SC2!

In the version we played, we had two Vespene Geysers with 2500 gas each and plenty of mineral batches with 1500 minerals. Each Probe gathers 5 minerals per turn or 4 gas respectively. StarCraft II now has an “Idle Probe" button which easily allows you to find unused Probes and send them back to work, just like WC3. I am quite interested in seeing some build orders here, when the beta is available: Will they go straight for Pylons or will they also implement an early Obelisk to enhance resource gathering and rush defence (as the Obelisk also is working as a Shield Battery in the current build)? Even among Blizzard employees there is a discussion about build orders with and without Obelisk, which is always a good sign.

Warpgate

Keyword: Warpgate! This allows you to be much more flexible than you wouldn imagine!

I was really surprised when I found out that it is possible to transform your Protoss Gateway into a Warpgate back and forth as many times as you want. Before now I believed this was only possible as a one-time change! These are the differences in the two buildings:
-Having a Gateway allows you to produce as many units and queue them as you have resources for them .
-Having a Warp Gate allows you to produce only one unit per Warp Gate, warp it to any Pylon range you have (or a Phase Prism), but without no queues and mass production – only one unit at a certain time!
- So if you own 5 Warp Gates you can easily put them into one group and warp each unit manually!

From my impression, the warp-in is much faster than the normal way of unit production. – But again no queue when warping!

In general I would say the game looks very polished and playable. There were no major issues that would make you think “Oh, they still have plenty of work to do here!” Maybe one or another animation could be more a bit more smooth (e.g. Phoenix), but as seen in the last Gameplay Video from the end of June, improvements have already been made.


Colossus

It’s awesome! Keep your infantry away from this monster! It really does “Terrible, Terrible Damage!”

There was one time when grrrrr tried to drop two fully loaded Medievac Drop Ships into my Base, with plenty of Marines in them. Unfortunately these guys they arrived as my first-time-ever Colossus left his construction yard and toasted them. No chance at all for those poor guys. /remember? This was even without the range upgrade: it was whoooom! The unit itself is not as weak as I believed it was when I saw it the first few times, but I still believe it is a bit oversized for a unit which is “only” against infantry as such. What most people forget is that the Cliff walking ability is very strong (and looks nice and smooth), so you have to consider the Colossus as behemoth, which can strike on your weakest point at any time.


Phoenix & Void Ray Combo

I also used some Phoenixes with Void Rays in a combo. I lifted a few of grrrrr’s Siege Tanks and toasted them with my powerful Void Ray beams. The good thing is that with the use of the Phoenix, the Void Ray's target is immobilized and can therefore use its maximized damage. It can also travel while firing, but only very slowly. The risk is the target gets out of range and the beam has to charge up again. This should be avoided at all costs. I am glad they changed the Phoenix from only able to lift up small units to lifting up nearly all ground units, but I am yet not sure if it also could lift a Thor for example.


Archons and Carriers

Later on I had the chance to build some Archons as well! They have a good range and look really wonderfully animated. This is one of the many units where the shield regeneration rate really counts, due to their strong shields. I did several exe-harassments with them and drew back before they died. After waiting one or two minutes, they are ready to attack again. Great harassment unit. Of course you have to look out for the Ghost with his EMP Missile dealing 100 damage to the Archon's shields...

I had another situation in which you realize the high rate of the shield regeneration: if you have some Carriers among your army and leave them in the background of the battle – they will only get little damage at all. Carriers still have a hard time vs Battlecruisers and now they have a hard time vs. the Thor too (their natural enemy). So the best thing to do is to stay out of reach, letting the Interceptors do the dirty work. Unfortunately I wasn't that smart and lost some Carriers in the battle. This was the time where my Immortals and their Hardened Shields came into play! At this time/build of the game they are killers! I guess 6 Immortals took out 8 Siege Tanks and 3-4 Thors completely! Due to their shields they are the adequate counter units against the Terran siege army!


Dark Templar

Last but not least I had the chance to build some Dark Templar! Besides looking really good (also the cloaking field is awesome) it is a powerful unit against Zerg! Grrrrr didn't remember the Zerg Overlord had lost its detection ability (it cannot see cloaked units), which is where the Overseer comes into play! Grrrrr was helpless against my Phoenix as I knocked out his Overseer and my DTs had a really fun time. Zergs will have a hard time at this state, considering the Corsair & Dark Templar combo is strong in StarCraft I, now think about only having few Overseers able to detect! Let's see how Blizz' will balance this out.

What else can be said?
We had no chance to view the games options, the one thing we actually wanted to investigate. It was easily not accessible, only a multiplayer menu where you could enter your nick and if you wanted to open or join a game. No other menu or any settings at all… Maybe next time!? Interesting is also that you can't change the map in an opened Game. You have to close it and open a new game if you would like to change the map, like in the predecessor.

Furthermore: all “unit portraits” (the picture of the unit you can find in the lower menu bar of the main gaming screen) looked great! Fully animated and detailed as well!

There was also a cool new feature where you could easily see the groups you have created on the top of the lower menu bar. This seems to be much better for a general unit overview.

http://starcraft.incgamers.com/articles/comments/protoss-late-game-experience/P0/

 

[Hazaro]

http://sclegacy.com/news/23-sc2/432-chris-sigaty-interviews

- No replays in single-player.
- Observers can not communicate with players.
- Joining current games is not possible.
- There is a total of 8 players allowed in the core game + 4 observer.
- At customs games 12 players are allowed, but then without observers.
- There will be a league with no-rush maps for beginners.
- Expansion are not stand-alone and need Wings of Liberty.
- Voice Chat confirmed.
- At the Terran Campaign you can play also Protoss , but not Zerg
- Demo will be after Starcraft 2 is shipped.
- Language packs will follow after release.

 

[Aaron]

- Language packs will follow after release.

So we're going to have to play it in Korean first? Because if there was ever an official language of Starcraft...

 

[Hazaro]

So we're going to have to play it in Korean first? Because if there was ever an official language of Starcraft...

They play it in English afaik.

Mentioning that, giving some exposure over to GOM and Blizzard and Intel's 'little' tourney.
$45,000 on the line for first. $20,000 for second.

http://www.gomtv.net/classics3/

 

[Won]

- There will be a league with no-rush maps for beginners.

:/

 

[Aaron]

They play it in English afaik.

Yeah, they do. Even the promo shots before the match tend to be in english. With how quickly the pros jump around the screen, I doubt they could read anything anyway.

Still, Starcraft 2 is almost here! A momentous event in gaming.

 

[Minsc]

12 player multi? That's a step up... the bar has been raised! Will be sweet seeing the havok caused to lag/cpu/gpu performance with ~5000 zerglings at once now.

 

[Dina]

- There will be a league with no-rush maps for beginners.
- Expansion are not stand-alone and need Wings of Liberty.
- At the Terran Campaign you can play also Protoss , but not Zerg

Seems a bit odd to me.

 

[Johann]

12 player multi? That's a step up... the bar has been raised! Will be sweet seeing the havok caused to lag/cpu/gpu performance with ~5000 zerglings at once now.

It's only 8 in ranked matches with the rest of the spots going to spectators.

 

[The Mule]

hmmm, only 12 player multi in custom games? would that include total conversions like DotA?

i was hoping to make a custom game with about 10 players per side (for a total of 20).

 

[Bisnic]

Is the Beta going to start already? Damn you Blizzard!

 

[The Lamonster]

Seems a bit odd to me.

Odd but sounds good to me

 

[Blizzard]

"Gee, that must be a weird quote that doesn't exactly mean what we think, so let's apply common sense to the situation to reach a logical conclusion"

Something called "LAN MODE" will probably be replaced with standard matchmaking lobbies coordinated through Battle.net that allow matches to be detected over the local network, with or without an active internet connection when local play is involved.

There was also the "Spawn copy" mode that the original Starcraft had.

Here is Blizzard's Official Response to the Fan Outcry:

"We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy.

So unless they change their mind, it still sounds like LAN parties would require some sort of firewalled internet connection, or double network cards, or whatever?

 

[BishopLamont]

I think the removal of LAN is just a marketing stunt, they'll have a way of playing over LAN disguised as another option is my guess.

 

[robochimp]

- There will be a league with no-rush maps for beginners.

ensuring that they stay beginners

 

[Draft]

Some people won't ever get good at Starcraft, and a lot of them have no desire to get good at Starcraft. They want to turtle, they want to play simcity with their base, and then they want to have completely insane and skilless scrums with vast, unorganized armies.

If B.net 2.0 makes it easier for these people to play and enjoy the game, what's the problem?

 

[Blizzard]

Some people won't ever get good at Starcraft, and a lot of them have no desire to get good at Starcraft. They want to turtle, they want to play simcity with their base, and then they want to have completely insane and skilless scrums with vast, unorganized armies.

If B.net 2.0 makes it easier for these people to play and enjoy the game, what's the problem?

Perhaps ironically lol) I'm one of those people, and I was basically going to say this. I'm assuming they mean no zerg rushes or something to that effect? For my part, I'm bad at strategy games, and bad at all other games, but I kind of like Starcraft at least in theory. I played part of the original Starcraft but haven't finished the Terran campaign yet.

My issues include A) not wanting to practice and study a ton to actually try to become competitive, especially when I would still probably never come near the skill level of a lot of the people who play it regularly, B) and not wanting to have to go crazy with the mouse to play the game. Carpal-tunnel-inducing games suck, so if there's a way for me to play that still involves some strategy without me having to do crazy fast mouse micromanagement, that sounds fun to me!

 

[Won]

My issues include A) not wanting to practice and study a ton to actually try to become competitive, especially when I would still probably never come near the skill level of a lot of the people who play it regularly, B) and not wanting to have to go crazy with the mouse to play the game. Carpal-tunnel-inducing games suck, so if there's a way for me to play that still involves some strategy without me having to do crazy fast mouse micromanagement, that sounds fun to me!

Matchmkaing, man, matchmaking!

 

[Blizzard]

Matchmkaing, man, matchmaking!

It sounds like they're adding a league that makes it easy to matchmake with people of like interests, no?

 

[sprsk]

Some people won't ever get good at Starcraft, and a lot of them have no desire to get good at Starcraft. They want to turtle, they want to play simcity with their base, and then they want to have completely insane and skilless scrums with vast, unorganized armies.

If B.net 2.0 makes it easier for these people to play and enjoy the game, what's the problem?

This is exactly how I play :'(

 

[webrunner]

I imagine starcraft will have a similar, but improved, version of the matchmaking system in Warcraft 3...

 

[Won]

It sounds like they're adding a league that makes it easy to matchmake with people of like interests, no?

Actually, reading that interview, it looks like it doesn't track win - losses, meaning every pro could just choose the "playlist" to stomp some newbs. I hope you enjoy that!

 

[robochimp]

Some people won't ever get good at Starcraft, and a lot of them have no desire to get good at Starcraft. They want to turtle, they want to play simcity with their base, and then they want to have completely insane and skilless scrums with vast, unorganized armies.

If B.net 2.0 makes it easier for these people to play and enjoy the game, what's the problem?

It looks so boring

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyRkW_Vcgsc

 

[Draft]

There's nothing wrong with playing like that. Comp stomp, no rush, BGH, these are all important parts of the Starcraft phenomenom.

 

[Zaptruder]

It looks so boring

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyRkW_Vcgsc

It's kind of amusing, but after watching the GOM SC league, that kind of play is really the equivalent of toddlers playing with blocks. It's just, hur hur, build em up, smash em down kind of play, and who wins is really kinda inconsequential.

There's no finesse, no feint, no reading the opponent... it's very basic sort of play.

I really really hope that Blizzard is going to go out of their way to make observing high level play really easy, really smooth. Including the commentary stuff I suggested (i.e. allow people to comment on games and upload them to Blizzard servers as MP3s... the commentaries and games can then get rated by players).

The other point I realised after watching all that GOM stuff is that, commentaries really help provide a great deal of interesting context to what we're watching.