[BlizzCon] Pics + SC2 Analysis

Sorry about the quality, there was some weird haze/fog in the area and until the middle of the 2nd day I couldn't figure out that flash would work better than no flash. I also felt that I didn't need to take so many damn pictures of progamers/the venue because everyone else with better skills/cameras than me prob already did so.






















Guy in white on right looking at camera is ZILEAS (the man the myth the legend), guy to his right is his buddy who works for Blizzard on WoW.

Some balance:
I played roughly 25 games as Protoss, 4 as Terran, 1 as Zerg. Zerg is absolutely ridiculously confusing and unaesthetically pleasing - I didn't even know I had an overlord at the start because it blended into the disgusting looking creep. It has all sorts of little units which all end up sucking. Lings at start seem a lot better now though, banelings are reportedly strong, and everything else gets raped by the Terran Hellions.

Terran is by far the funnest race to play atm. It's kind of like Human in war3 if any of you guys play - While it's not necessarily the strongest, it has a ton of pretty and interesting things that make it really fun to dick around with.

Protoss is probably the strongest race in this build, with Terran at second and Zerg at a far third. The effectiveness of Zealots early game has been diminished, and getting leg/charge tech (doubled into 1 upgrade) takes quite a while to research. Stalkers are the upgraded dragoon but control a lot better, but also arent as beefy I think. The real sexiness is found in Immortals which are expensive but an amazing tank and damage dealer (imagine giving Toss unsieged tanks to roll around with), Dark Templars which do 45 fucking damage, CARRIERS (which are atm incredibly effective vs every race, most especially Terran).

Some Strategy:
I thought there was going to be an official tournament on the 2nd day, turns out that was a farce and I had been practicing build orders nonstop the previous day for nothing. Here's my results:
- As a Zerg, your best bet is to make a lot of units and get raped by Hellions or Archons or whatever the fuck your opponent has.

- As a Terran, the current best strategy is Marine/Marauder into Medivac. This was exposed to me by Gaetele who stole it from some other TL.net member and I refined it and told my buddy Ghostclaws to try it out and he's been having amazing success with it despite not even being that good ;p. This works for TvZ and TvP - you can now do this safely against Protoss ground because Dragoons alone CANNOT take on an MM army because the terran focus fire is way too strong at this point (and you cant even micro out of it because Marauders slow whatever it's attacking). I've refined this build into getting 3 Medivacs and dropping the fucking shit out of everyones main because in SC1, everyone protects their natural and not their main which leads me to my first revelation - You CAN'T approach SC2 with an SC1 perspective. It's a different game in that you need to be creative enough to figure out due to the new unit/map selection, how the metagame will turn out. In SC1, ramp/1 choke maps are prevalent so no one defends their mains. In SC2 however, there's a lot more options as far as dropping and various forms of sneak attacking.

- As a Protoss, I'm currently 2 gate gooning into various builds vs Protoss and having tremendous success, due in part to the revamped control of the Dragoon unit (Stalker) which makes the game feel a lot like WarCraft 3, and I was always a ton better at war3 than I ever was at sc1, so that gave me a huge advantage. Against Terran I'm going Zealot into Immortal if they're dong Marine/Marauder, but that doesn't seem to be that effective, otherwise I'm going Immortals against terran which rapes the fuck out of any other build (which is likely to be mech).

Some Thoughts
So the game isn't balanced, the game has huge inherent differences from SC1, and the engine is completely different. My second revelation would be that the entire pathing and attacking/animation system has been reworked. Advanced Micromanagement has thus been stunted. What this means is, you can't pull a NaDa and micro 2 vultures into raping a ton of lings chasing you. You can't pull a July with mutas and wreak havoc on an SCV line. What you CAN do is watch your units creep up to your target, animate itself a bit, and THEN fire an attack volley. So think "DRAGOON" but EVEN WORSE. This is one of the biggest problems I have with the game, because with MBS (which to my knowledge, has been reworked as well btw, but nothing too significant) making macro easier, and micro being restricted by the game engine, one has to wonder if this was a conscious decision by Blizzard to limit the emphasis on speed, and increase emphasis on strategy/thinking.

There's some stupid feature where everyone runs out of gas harvesting capabilities on a refinery/etc. after a certain amount of gas has been taken out of that building. It then "repairs" itself which takes a long ass while while your 3 probes are sitting there waiting to get in. Yes it's just that peculiar. So throughout the game you're constantly having to juggle your gas econ and timings due to that because sometimes you're going to have to pull probes off gas, and then back again, etc. Definitely a weird game.

I mentioned it last year, but it deserves another mention. The graphics are BEAUTIFUL, but imo detract from the overall gameplay and feasibility of SC2 as a spectator sport (ironically). Look, this is coming from a warcraft 3 player - when I say that there's just way too much shit flying everywhere and going every which way in 15 hundred different color schemes, something is definitely up. There will be times where I'd say, blow something up with a tank, and for whatever reason that unit's remains will fly all over the terrain. I mean it's a cute touch, but come the fuck on, I'm not trying to visually impress myself when I'm playing competitively. The game just isn't visually simple, it's tough to really discern what the fuck is going on or why until you've had a lot of experience, which should be avoided if this game is ever going to become a spectator sport.

I also mentioned this last year, and Blizzard either said fuck you panorama i hate you, or just didn't read my awesome blog, but the sounds STILL aren't poignant enough. I NEED to be able to recognize instantly when a unit dies as opposed to when they're just grunting or whatever the hell they're doing. I need to know when units die so I can register the information subconsciously in my head and adjust accordingly. Half the battle I'm here trying to figure out just exactly what I lost and what I should do (medium battles+ obviously). I don't know if it's sincerely a problem or if it' just a product of habit, but I am very unsatisfied with the visual/audio aspects of this game past the "Wow that looks/sounds sweet!", which is the "But wait what the fuck.....?"

Some Conclusions
Overall, this is going to be an exciting, fast-paced game. There are so many elements that are unique to SC2 at this current point in time that SC1 and War3 lack, which I think is pretty cool. It's a bit weird if a top SC player can pick up SC2 and say, become the best within a week of playing. I definitely think there should be a balance of new-ism and old shit in this game, and I think Blizzard has done a pretty good job. Builds, timings, styles of play will become so significantly different I can't wait to see how it turns out (most specifically in the dropping/countering department).