The StarCraft II thread

[xRECKONERx]

I think it's just a regular tournament but with the understanding that everyone playing is terribleish.

So DRK & I just did some 2v2 for a couple hours. We were on a six game winstreak at one point, then we got VOID RAY'd like two games in a row.

[gandalf5166]

I fucking hate void rays with a burning passion.

[xRECKONERx]

Yeah. the in-game help thing is like VOID RAYS ARE WEAK TO VIKINGS but that's horse shit

[TheButtonmen]

Voidrays move at 2.25 and have range 6.
Vikings move at 2.75 and have range 9.

If it's just Vikings vs Voidrays then Vikings can kite voidrays to death without every taking a hit.

A) Have all your vikings on a hotkey.
B) A-Click by the voidrays.
C) M-Click a behind your vikings.
D) Hit S.
E) M-Click behind your vikings.
E) Hit S.

Everytime your vikings stop moving they will automatically fire at the closest voidray, since you have longer range and higher speed you can just rinse and repeat until the void rays stop chasing or are all dead. If they stop chasing then you can just run them down.

[xRECKONERx]

Perhaps, but when the void rays are en masse and fucking up your base, there's really nothing you can do.

[Albert B. Rampage]

im online now

[xRECKONERx]

Name/#?

[TheButtonmen]

Perhaps, but when the void rays are en masse and fucking up your base, there's really nothing you can do.

I will now share with you the wisdom of our ancestors.

“One of the best counters is to just go fucking kill him.” - Day[9]

[Claus]

Oh man, I haven't played starcraft in ages. After a very sucky day at work, I deserve this:

IT IS A GLORIOUS DAY FOR MANKIND!

FFA, I go mass marine/medvacs. Opponents are massing in their bases. Kill one zerg who was trying to expo. Then kill a second zerg with a biggish base (but dont see his expo). By then the protoss massed an army of Carriers + Mothership, I build a fuckton of turrets in the middle of the map, and manage to fight the carriers there, taking them down. Then I realize the second zerg is still alive... I fear he has massed banes or ultras, but fortunately no.

Go terran!

[Gammagooey]

Man the last FFA I played I got attacked by all three other players consecutively on Metalopolis.
I held off the first attack (from terran) and went and murdered half his base, then got attacked by zerg and barely held it off (and he left the game right afterwards), then less than a minute afterwards the final player (protoss) comes in with a 150+ supply army and decimates my main, and then I just hopped around with expansions for 10 minutes before he killed them all.
I was sad.

[xRECKONERx]

I have never done a FFA, it seems too intimidating.

Also, Heart of the Swarm teaser went up yesterday, woot woot.

[Claus]

I have never done a FFA, it seems too intimidating.

I think the opposite: FFA´s are so much a flip of the coin, that I go into them without any expectations. It is really good for a relaxing game.

The only problem is that it takes so damn long to get a random FFA game going...

Also, Heart of the Swarm teaser went up yesterday, woot woot.

Meh, not impressed. And what´s up with them charging full game price for an expansion? >_>

[xRECKONERx]

Well, to be fair, it's another full-length campaign (the same size as Wings of Liberty), plus a bunch of multiplayer mods with new ladders for the new units and buildings (lurkers, apparently). I don't mind paying full price for it, especially since we won't even see it until Q1/Q2 2012.

[gandalf5166]

Yeah, they're splitting it up into three games because they want each game to be all it can be, not to milk us for cash. They really are making a whole new game, practically. Some costs will be lower since the main mechanics are already set up, but they deserve whatever extra money they're getting there.

[xRECKONERx]

PS, I'm having a racial crisis. I can't decide if I want to keep playing Terran, but there are things I hate about each race that I'm not sure I can overcome:

Terran: Siege tanks. I fucking hate using them, and I hate playing against them.
Protoss: The whole mechanic behind warp-ins is odd and unfamiliar. It feels like having a third arm or something.
Zerg: Balancing drone production with army production.

[gandalf5166]

I SO agree with you on siege tanks. I haven't actually tried the other races though, so I don't know >.>

[Moratorium]

I gladly accept the "odd and unfamiliar" warp-in mechanic in exchange for being able to summon units anywhere on the map. Hotkeying pylons for quick production is useful also.

[Claus]

Well, to be fair, it's another full-length campaign (the same size as Wings of Liberty), plus a bunch of multiplayer mods with new ladders for the new units and buildings (lurkers, apparently). I don't mind paying full price for it, especially since we won't even see it until Q1/Q2 2012.

A full length campaign is just another bunch of scenarios. New ladders for the new units and buildings were already available on battle.net for previous games. Some of the new units (lurkers for example) were already available in the beta.

Unless they are offering a whole new engine to take advantage of technical innovations that happened in the 2-3 years between the games, yeah this is just an expansion. BroodWars and the WC3 expansions came at a fraction of the price of the original game.

EDIT: Don't take me wrong. I like the game. But given that in the past we were offered the same amount of extra content for a reduced price - yeah this feels like a ripoff. Customers should be complaining about it.

[UltimaAvalon]

But it's par for the course for Post-WoW Blizzard. World of Warcraft has been doing the same thing for the last 7 years.

[Knight of Cydonia]

Par for the course, yes.
A good thing for the industry, no. At least with WoW you know there's going to be stuff added for a decent spell post-release, whereas SC2 is just going to be balanced/bugfixed.
I would blame Activision, but Blizzard are very very adamant that Activision have no control over that sort of thing.

[UltimaAvalon]

I wouldn't say it's bad for the industry. Blizzard is really the only developer who could do something like this and get away with it.

[Knight of Cydonia]

Because releasing a new 5 hour campaign (not in SC2's case, but still) every November with a slightly tweaked engine and multiplayer rebalancing doesn't happen all the time in Activision-land... Or yearly sport franchises that have changed very little... or new Guitar Hero/Rock Bands... or Assassin's Creed... there won't have been 3 different iterations of Street Fighter 4 by the time AE comes out... Yep, it's only Blizzard who get away with it.

[UltimaAvalon]

yearly sport franchises

Has been happening since before WoW, only those who are REALLY INTO IT will buy it every year

new Guitar Hero/Rock Bands

Around the same time as WoW, only those who are REALLY INTO IT will buy it each time

there won't have been 3 different iterations of Street Fighter 4 by the time AE comes out

And guess who's going to buy each iteration.

Assassin's Creed

Really? Ubisoft did a great job of making sure neither the single player nor multiplayer felt tacked on to Brotherhood, and Revelations is looking to be even better.

[Knight of Cydonia]

Well, those who are REALLY INTO SC2 are going to get taken for $180. A game and 2 expansions sold as 3 full price games is just not a good thing for RTS in general. Wings of Liberty was a full game, Heart of the Swarm and... Call of the Void, is it? I can't remember what they nailed down for the third expansion in the end - are almost inevitably going to be a shorter campaign and some extra units, and Blizzard can do that because they know that the entire competitive scene will have to migrate both times, and that a significant chunk of the semi-competitive/casual scene will follow, just as Capcom knows will happen with SSF4AE. Just like the yearly sport franchises always sell massive amounts right before Christmas, just like until recently the new Guitar Hero and Rock Band games sold huge amounts, the SC2 expansions are a calculated ploy to milk as much as they can out of the fanbase, just like the whole "never drop the price EVER" thing that is peculiar to Activision & Blizzard especially vis a vis WoW, Call of Duty (MW2 is still £25 in stores, MW is still £20) and now Starcraft 2.

-edit- This sounds like I'm down on these games. I'm not, I think they're all excellent (perhaps with the exception of Modern Warfare), I just wouldn't buy them every time the franchise is rolled out. I waited until I got AC2 and AC:B for £15, I stopped playing WoW pre-LK on hearing it was going to be a full-price release, and I'm probably not going to pick up the SC2 expansions.

[xRECKONERx]

vs. Protoss: cannons. are. a. bitch.