Today in Seoul, Blizzard released the swarm on an unsuspecting public. Panicked citizens ran amok in the streets as the Queen of Blades issued a warning. The zerg are here.
Ultras... burrow!
Now onto the units!
Corrupter - New Unit - An air-to-air combat unit. - Rather than destroying it's opponents, it infests them an turns them into a stationary turret-like unit/building, making them fight their own allies.
Infester - New Unit - As a battle support unit, does not have any attacks. - Can move while burrowed. - Can cast Dark Swarm: Seems to be the same. - Can cast Disease: Creates and aura that damages the unit. - Can cast Infestation: Can infest any building and create infested marines from them. The marines are slow, but fires similar to regular marines.
Roach - New Unit - Ground unit that can regenerate HP at an incredibly fast rate. - Requires powerful and concentrated fire to destroy. - Has 90HP. (*From Stork's interview. See This Thread)
Overseer - New Evolutionary Unit - Evolves from: Overlord - Larger vision range than the Overlord, can detect invisible/burrowed units.
Overlord - Upgraded - Can no longer detect invisible/burrowed units. - New ability: Can neutralize resources or neutral posts. - Can create small creeps.
Baneling - New Evolutionary Unit - Evolves from: Zerglings - Explodes on contact with enemy units or buildings
Swarm Guradian - New Evolutionary Unit - Evolves from: Mutalisk - Has an even longer range, and powerful against ground units. - Can create broodlings that attack for a period of time.
Nydus Worm - New Unit - Unit version of the Nydus Canal. - Can create canals anywhere on the map.
Queen - Upgraded - Created directly from the Hatchery - Can only have 1 Queen at a time. - Has many powerful abilities that are good for zerg and directs the defensive line. - Can expand creeps or act as a defensive structure. - [Ability] Deep Tunnel: Can move to any hatchery on the map. - Can evolve and learn more abilities.
Ultralisk - Upgraded - Can now burrow. - Can now attack multiple units.
Old Units - Same - Zergling - Hydralisk - Lurker - Mutalisk
You can see more pictures, and read an interview in these threads: mr0919 Live2Win
In addition to the video, a progamer representing each team was in attendance for the announcement. FighterForum.com interviewed each of them afterwards and they gave their opinions of the new games. Thanks to WaxAngel, we have some brief summaries here:
[광희]Saint Snorlax says: figherforum [광희]Saint Snorlax says: short summaries [광희]Saint Snorlax says: from players [광희]Saint Snorlax says: I'm guessing they're paraphrasing Jaedong: They said the queen was improved, but I was a bit disappointed. It has low HP, and died quickly. It feels different, but you can still micro mutas. You can use bigger control groups, but you can't do hit and run like before. A lot of units have been added, so they game will change a lot
Moon: Now I've tried all three races. The interface isn't that different from war3, so I'll be able to adjust easily. I think zerg fits my playstyle the best.
Pusan: It's very similarto SC1 in general, but the graphics are a lot better. The new units make it look lik a lot of fun. I'm sad that the 3d takes away the feel of 'finesse' SC1 had, though. Playing vs zerg should be fine in sc2. If you start from the same place, the person who tries harder should win, right?
Stork: The protoss graphics are great. The units just look so much better than sc1. SC is such a perfectly balanced game, so SC2 obviously needs a lot of balancing and tweaking in comparison. It will probably change a lot before release.
Zerg got a lot of powerful new spells, they seem stronger in general. It might be difficult to play vs a zerg who is good at using spells. In general, I think that you will have to focus on overall management, more so than micro.
Nada: It's similar to SC1. Terran in particular is very similar. I'm disappointed they don't have many new things compared to other races. Zerg looked pretty fun. They have a lot of variety in units and upgrades. The queen comes out so quickly, so maybe TvZ will be hard."
Nal_rA: It looks fun. For a game to be popular, isn't that the most important thing? I think it will do well when it's released. It's too early to talk about balance. Each race has new, powerful units, so it should be fun. upmagic: It's really fun. I tried to look for strategic play as I tried it out. You can do some cool things with terran supply depots. The ability to raise and lower the depots has good walling possibilities.
The nydus canal is a lot stronger now, you can use them instead of drops to attack the enemy's main.
Luxury(?): It seems very different from SC.. The queen is a lot better, and comes out very fast, so I like it. It's good for zerg that nydus canals are more useful now. Overlords lost their detecting (I think he missed the upgrade for it), but zerg looks better overall
Savior: I was expected a lot from the queen, but it wasn't as strong as I hoped. There are a lot of new units and buildings, and I haven't figured them out yet. There are many powerful spells, and they should effect the game strongly if used correctly.
Bisu: I tried SC2 for the first time today. There are quite a few changes. Zerg magic might be difficult to deal with, but we'll have to see. I'll try hard to be strong PvZ, if I play SC2!
Hwasin: Zerg is stronger. The fact that all units can burrow is difficult. Their new, strong magic makes it so it won't be easy to play vs zerg
Check out full interviews with Jaedong and Stork here, translated by Live2Win and WaxAngel.
Fomos - How was the game? JaeDong - The graphics change to 3D made it difficult to get use to. But actually playing it I don't think much changed. It's similar to StarCraft 1 and I don't think there'll be any problems for the fans to enjoy it. If you get use to it I think it'll be very fun.
- How has zerg changed? JD - The unit's characteristics changed. Adding new units and making them stronger, I believe if you concentrate on that the zerg will be powerful.
- The Queen was introduced. JD - There were a few units not used in StarCraft. The Queen was an exmaple but in SC2 a lot of new abilities were added to make it better. I like the fact that there are a lot of new casters for zerg.
- Have you used the mutalisks. JD - The mutalisks aren't much different from SC1. But the muta control has become more difficult. It's possible to clump them up as one but hitting and running control was impossible.
- How were the other units. JD - I tried out the Nydus Worm and it creates canals while moving. It will become very useful. The zerglings were bigger so they seemed stronger. But in actuality they weren't much different. It only felt like that.
- If you play StarCraft 2. JD - If I play StarCraft 2 (I assume they mean professionally?) I'll keep playing with zerg. In SC1 the zerg was a macro-specific race but in SC2 macro was obvious, but I think it requires more strategic and skillful techniques.
Fomos - How was the game? Stork - I played protoss mostly and I was satisfied. The graphics were much better and I really liked the Mothership. But I think the mothership's blackhole ability was removed and she required a lot of mana so I wasn't able to test them out. The zerg became more gross and messy, but powerful.
- How's the protoss? Stork - I didn't find it too difficult to play with protoss. The zerg felt similar to the previous game, but the buildings were a bit confusing because they looked the same.
- Do you think the fans of SC1 can easily adapt to SC2? Stork - I think it depends on personal preference. It will probably depend on if you prefer 2D or 3D. It's probably because the game's still under development but I still like SC1 better.
- How were the new zerg units? Stork - The Queen could be made straight from the hatchery. I didn't really understand because it was written in english, but when used correctly I think it will be a useful unit. A new unit called Roach was added and it had 90 HP. But unless you deal 90 damage to it, it will heal extremely fast to 100%. It was pretty cheap (unfair).
- The greatest difference of Protoss? Stork - The units all look really cool. If anything changed it's that the Dark Archon was removed. Whether you morph Dark Templars or High Templars they all come out as archons. Queueing units and buildings were possible so it felt like things were easier.
- Out of the units you tried today, which did u like the most? Stork - I tried the psionic storm but it wasn't that cool. I liked the carrier the most but it won't be easy concentrating on control. The scout and arbiters were removed.
Next up, the zerg will take over North America. On March 11th, Blizzard will release their creation in California. TeamLiquid will have two reporters, LastRomantic and semioldguy there to provide coverage, and to defend TeamLiquid's unbeaten SCII streak. Stay tuned for those reports.
This is the moment that I've been waiting for for ages. I am proud to be a servant of the Swarm, seeing as how it is still completely, 100% motherfucking badass.
On March 10 2008 13:13 Last Romantic wrote: If SoG and I do not have the best 2v2 rec there,
I will change my sig to 'KTF is the worst team in ProLeague' for a month.
Reporting the news in your signature isn't embarrassing, it's your position on staff. You need to be forced to do something like, battle report on all Reach's matches since Daum OSL.
On March 10 2008 13:13 Last Romantic wrote: If SoG and I do not have the best 2v2 rec there,
I will change my sig to 'KTF is the worst team in ProLeague' for a month.
Reporting the news in your signature isn't embarrassing, it's your position on staff. You need to be forced to do something like, battle report on all Reach's matches since Daum OSL.
the Extractor and Spire both had some kind of decent defense attack. the spawning pool and some other building did not (earlier clip in the video), perhaps they didnt have some new building defense upgrade at that point.
Arr, the whole continuous laser thing didn't seem to function very well mechanically as splash damage, but I gotta say, it looked a whole lot cooler. Now they just alternate spread pew pew from either "armsocket" and it kinda lost its kickass
Edit: while I think the graphical aspects of beams are very difficult to put into practice, if they must stay I would prefer up to six continous beams at the same time, doing single unit damage but together working as splash, and looking awesome.
The trailer is very epic. Kerrigan has taken her time to muster strength, and the laughable Protoss have no choice but to tremble before the swarm.
A galactic conflict began millennia ago can only now be decided. The wounds are still fresh, but the Queen of Blades has no qualms about raking them deeper.
Concerned about the lack of muta micro potential that Jaedong mentioned. Hope it doesn't indicate a trend
IMO the gameplay video didn't show any real gameplay, just cinematics with the engine. I'd really like to see how the game actually plays, like a VOD of a match between pros or something ;D
it's going to be very hard to balance the game with the nydus worm available... (if it's a late game unit) both terran and protoss could not move all units away from their bases, they would need defending all the time.
Lots of nice innovations. It's nice to see Blizzard trying to put so much new ideas into the game and making each unit special. However, the Zerg look even more Warcraft-like than the other races. I am also sad Dark Swarm made a return - maybe they will tweak it :|
it's cool with 3D, but if they'r gonna use it, they have to make it possible to micro!
spare me the cliche names...they do this so kids and people with no imagination can understand what the hell the units are.
i was really troubled by the messages about not having the possibility to hit and run! this is one of the factors that seperates SC from WC3.
The worst of all is probably the emphasise on doing a lot of spells instead of microing units. why not do them both?! the videos showed only massive fights with no possibility to distinguishe units from one another. this might only be the bad quality of the video's of course! but still, i hope they really listen to the progamers during the beta, as long as the players keep staying open minded. in my opinion, this looks easier to play..
The great thing is that they ask the progamers what they think! this means that they focus on it being a competitive game, wich is sonymous with a good game in my opinion
i think we're all agonna love this game like it ws our own little baby after balancing and other fix up's, this IS gonna be a great game!!!:D
It looks way too warcraft-ish... God could you tell me you recognized every unit that was in the melee ? I really hope it won't look like the warcraft's one T_T
On March 10 2008 19:13 downtoearth wrote: it's cool with 3D, but if they'r gonna use it, they have to make it possible to micro!
spare me the cliche names...they do this so kids and people with no imagination can understand what the hell the units are.
i was really troubled by the messages about not having the possibility to hit and run! this is one of the factors that seperates SC from WC3.
The worst of all is probably the emphasise on doing a lot of spells instead of microing units. why not do them both?! the videos showed only massive fights with no possibility to distinguishe units from one another. this might only be the bad quality of the video's of course! but still, i hope they really listen to the progamers during the beta, as long as the players keep staying open minded. in my opinion, this looks easier to play..
yeah, i probably won't play sc2 because of that. If the game is just WC3 with aliens then I don't give a shit. Jaedong was talking about how there is no macro, and it's a micro game.
Unless everyone switches to sc2, i think sc still looks a better option (unless they tidy up the micro and macro)
damn, i hope blizzard pull off a miracle here and dont give into the retards and listen to the pros.
ps. who gives a shit...a fucking shit about visuals? Gameplay 100% guys, don't let pretty colours get in the way. The game does look cool, but so did a hundred games which turned out to be shit
Queen just became a zerg hero. That's NOT good. And I hate the fact hey just keep on adding more spells to the game - if that's their idea of micro then we're doomed.
hm................the queen and some other things looked to wc3-ey for me. and units movements are too wc3ey which means slow and cumbersome and looks ..just not sc1ish.
maybe blizzard should've created a new engine instead of just updating the wc3 one a bit :/
On March 10 2008 13:13 Last Romantic wrote: If SoG and I do not have the best 2v2 rec there,
I will change my sig to 'KTF is the worst team in ProLeague' for a month.
Reporting the news in your signature isn't embarrassing, it's your position on staff. You need to be forced to do something like, battle report on all Reach's matches since Daum OSL.
That'd be like.... almost no work at all :p
edit: hmmm, maybe I should finish reading everything in this thread before I reply any more.
well thats called first-hand-info ! Thanks ... what I see makes me rather disappointed, but I'm sure it's because the low quality of the videos, I'll check the thinks out in Paris on the Blizz Invitational, but for now I'm a bit reserved... Btw Bisu played vs Savior ?!
Is it just me or did the sound effects suck ? :[ especially zergling and zealot attacks didn't stand out anymore like they do in SC and the continous "eek, eek" (probably death sounds?!) from the Zerg were annoying imo.
the sound effects are the least of out problems...stuff like that growns on you. zerglings in sc1 sounds like they come from an old radio under water...but still, i like the sc1 zergling sound, cause it has grown on me since may 1998.
the thing is that i hope this game isn't gonna be t easy just to satisfy the crowd. that's what happened to counter strike, after cs: source came out. people are makeing a pro mod there..
looks ok but still a little toooo flashy (baneling explosion too big too long) and death animations are still slow as shit and take a calender week to play out. needs to be quick, precise and not attention grabbing.
oh yea and the queen is starting to sound like a base defence hero =(
Some unintentional mistakes here from Blizzard due to either good and bad coding and the game engine, explanation:
- A.I. Pathing is too good! This means that Units tighten up too much and will get a much better punch on the attack compared to SC 1 while becoming more vulnerable to area attack (which seems nerfed in this game.) "Retain formation box" or "the magic box" should still be in the game imo.
- Attack move and A.I. targetting much too powerful on the same basis as above! This means that a human control ling/zealot battle will have very little too gain and may actually be worse than letting the game A.I. sort out targetting and moving by itself. This is a game destroyer right here!
- Air units decelerate to attack instantly. Retain acceleration, unit stacking for air to give players to abilities to do hit and runs like before.
- Turnrates. They shouldn't be in the game period with the exception of specific units for very specific reasons. Again, this will limit your ablitiy to dance with units in combat and make it sluggish, making it better in many cases to just let the "A.I. do it's thing." Players don't care if it looks unrealistic or not, but they will care if the units don't respond to orders and gameplay will seem sluggish and unresponsive.
- Unit attack animations waaayyy too long. Again, this means that the difference between player micro and A.I. targetting is negligable. Still too flashy attack visuals and deaths in some cases. Lingering debris and bodies can become confusing as well.
- Many or most unit models are too detailed. Detail means clutter, and in turn make it harder to instantly identify them and their numbers on the battlefield. They should be distict, simple, and possibly even on a "karikatyr" level. (Doesn't translate that well, but the closest is cartoonish, with the emphasis on character and distinctive traits.)
- Other than that, some things looked promising, and most of the imbalanced abilities were gone. I wonder though if banelings aren't currently overpowered like roaches. The baneling is a tricky unit since it needs enough HP:s to get a chance to get close and destruct, but if it has too many it will be destroyed. The same with the Roach, too many HP:s and it will be nearly invincible when introduced, too few and it will be useless lategame. (Roach is thus bad idea for a unit from a gameplay perspective.)
- A final note is that its fine to have straight up movers and shooters because even if they don't have any special abilities per se, they will serve different functions and play differently simply because speed, size, cost, damage, attack rate, projectile speed is different. No need to mediawhore and try too hard to make every unit the next lightbulb.
So while the game still looks interesting, these are some fundamentals to take note of to make a competitive game, and unless they get this into their head, they will fail, and we will have yet another "good, but not greater than itself" game, like broodwar.
the hero thing is bothering me too.. if the queen and mothership is gonna be to strong it sucks. every unit should have it's own important role...the teching like in wc3 is anoying. you should be able to kill a unit with another unit without it being a rock-paper-sicsors game. if you HAVE to counter one unit with another, this will be a very boring game, because we will see the same strategies over and over...
Why do they keep giving races an extremely powerful unit that you can only have 1 of. That's called a hero Blizzard, and we didn't like those in your last game.
This is really turning in wc3 in space I'm afraid. The battles were so slow I'd start to watch one and then lose interest and a minute later of hearing the horrible zergling death sound (i think thats what it was) I'd realize the same fight was still going on.
Ugh. I know a lot of people have impossibly high expectations and I don't blame them cause SC was so awesome, but the one thing I didn't want from SC2 was WC3 in space.
On March 10 2008 21:59 Luhh wrote: - Turnrates. They shouldn't be in the game period with the exception of specific units for very specific reasons. Again, this will limit your ablitiy to dance with units in combat and make it sluggish, making it better in many cases to just let the "A.I. do it's thing." Players don't care if it looks unrealistic or not, but they will care if the units don't respond to orders and gameplay will seem sluggish and unresponsive.
what unit had any turnrate? as far as i can see (by looking at the selection circle), units respond directly but the models rotate more slowly (which isnt a problem, thats just for a nicer look).
Hopefully we will have more feedback after Semioldguy and Last Romantic get to check it out , win their 2v2 and represent teamliquid looking forward to their impressions on it... hopefully we will have more insight and info from them than what we got for the pro's btw GL GUYS!!!
they are obligated to make sc2 an equaly good game, if not an even better one! we SHOULD have great expectations. if theyr just gonna make this game to make money of of the starcraft legacy, they can go kill them selfes. they'd better patch this game into eternity if we say so. we all gave all this money to them for making sc1....so they should use it on something else than another wc3. if someone in blizzard knows math, they should put together 2 and 2...people loved everything in sc1, but wc3 was nothing in comparisant. so they should use the good stuff from sc1, and not put in the bad stuff from wc3...like the fukin heroes. i'm personally gonna see to it that everyone who comes at me with a fukin mothership is gonna be beaten with melee units
that being said, i really love blizzard for trying as hard as they can! i'm positive this is gonna be a greta game regardless. they WILL listen to the community, because they have seen the ripple effects of what it can do to a game.
whats he saying?? for those of us that dont speak korean
Might as well contribute. This is my best translation:
Savior: Both last time I played SC2 at blizzcon, and this time, the same problem I'm having is the fact that I was having a hard time adapting to 3D. I rarely play 3D games in my spare time.
1Question: Anything you especially remember from testing the game?
Savior: When they first explained the game, they said the Queen is a very helpful unit but I didn't know how to use it at all. I was supposed to defend with it but instead used it as an offensive unit and it died on me.
2Question: Just a moment ago you played against bisu, it's still at test game, but are you satisfied with the results? Did you guys both enjoy it? (savior won)
Savior: We just both enjoyed it and tried to test out the game rather than to win.
3Question: Can you state your overall satisfaction with the game?
Savior:The gameplay isn't as slow as expected. There's plenty of speed and excitement. It's just that I didn't have alot of understanding of the game yet, otherwise I could have enjoyed it more.
Zerg looks like it will be highly mobile and able to move large ammounts of units across maps quickly, talk about map control! The swarm will consume everything! I love the concept of the nydus worm, completely makes bases with static d protecting 1 entrance useless and it just seems right that the zerg have a unit that can just pop up in the middle of your base and have a bunch of units charge out. Also I like the corruption factor that they have really increased. The whole feel of the race is like what you might expect from a species such as the zerg are. They corrupt things they can attack various ways to overrun your base etc. Love it!
BTW there seems to be a lot of people who are just giving up hope blizzard will come through? The game isnt even to fucking Beta.....there is SO much time for revision its not even funny, The names can easily be changed and so can a lot of the other qualities such as this concept of the "hero" unit. When sc was in this stage you hardly would have recognized it. That and when it comes to balancing they have beta testing and patches or even like sc1 and add an expansion. The concept of only 1 queen makes sense with the kind of organisms they are trying to model the zerg after. They are modeling them after swarm insects and those species generally only have 1 queen per nest. Maybe they could make them just semi powerful and limit the amount of queens you can have like 1 per hatchery or something. I can see what they are trying to do with only 1 Queen. And why does everyone put so much emphasis on those long huge battles at the end? They just throw in continuous large amounts of units for 3 min with no micro and of course its going to be a cluster fuck, that and adding with the poor quality of the vids. I wish I could see this game 1st hand if only I could be a beta tester!
I think they should keep the queen. Maybe just tweak it somewhat, and make it one pair lair or something, as suggested elsewhere. On the other hand, I think they should get rid of the mothershit; just replace it with star relic aka overhauled arbiter.
On March 11 2008 00:13 Slaughter)BiO wrote: BTW there seems to be a lot of people who are just giving up hope blizzard will come through? The game isnt even to fucking Beta.....there is SO much time for revision its not even funny, The names can easily be changed and so can a lot of the other qualities such as this concept of the "hero" unit. When sc was in this stage you hardly would have recognized it. That and when it comes to balancing they have beta testing and patches or even like sc1 and add an expansion. The concept of only 1 queen makes sense with the kind of organisms they are trying to model the zerg after. They are modeling them after swarm insects and those species generally only have 1 queen per nest. Maybe they could make them just semi powerful and limit the amount of queens you can have like 1 per hatchery or something. I can see what they are trying to do with only 1 Queen. And why does everyone put so much emphasis on those long huge battles at the end? They just throw in continuous large amounts of units for 3 min with no micro and of course its going to be a cluster fuck, that and adding with the poor quality of the vids. I wish I could see this game 1st hand if only I could be a beta tester!
I think slaughter is right. I would refrain from insulting the intelligence of the Blizzard dev's by saying that SC2 is just gonna be another version of WC3. Blizzard knows that the two games have two different and distinct playstyles and so im sure they will make sure that the mechanics in one game wont overwhelm the mechanics in another. Have faith my fellow starcraft nerds! daddy blizzard will come through ;-)
I love the new direction they are going with the zerg. This whole infestation aspect they are going after is something I wished they would have done more in the first starcraft (considering the only "infestation" that occured was with the infested command center). However, i think that there needs to be allot of balancing. The corruptors seem a bit cheap to me. Considering how strong enemy flyer units are, especially capital ships like the mothership, carrier, and battlecruiser, I think that they might need to increase the time it takes for a unit to get infested, or make corruptors a considerably expensive unit.
I also love how Blizzard is making sc2 less of a "turtling" style game. With warp-ins, drop pods, and nydus worms, SC2 is going to be a game that is much more unit/offensively based than defensive.
The biggest concern that I have is the potential unit-type that zerg has. If the infestors can infest nearly any building then that means that the zerg have their own unit types as well as protoss and terran unit types, in my opinion this means that the zerg have INCREDIBLE flexiblity when it comes to tactics and timing.
For these reasons and more Ill bet that many of the units we see here are going to get nerfed in the near future (predator anyone?)
When i watched the videos this morning it was kind of a dull moment. The quality of the videos shurely killed it a bit. But what get's me angry is that all scenes were mass vs mass. Something i personaly don't give a fuck about. If i wan't to see masses clashing it out i'm going to play dawn of war or supcom.
I have to admit that when the zerglings run down to the protoss base it looks pretty epic. That's nice for the single player stuff. But a trillion zerglings and 20 lurkers attacking a protoss base puts me to sleep. When i saw the zergling tearing appart the "terran ball" i just put up the CJ Entus face. Nothing to be excited about there.
Next up, the zerg will take over North America. On March 11th, Blizzard will release their creation in California. TeamLiquid will have two reporters, LastRomantic and semioldguy there to provide coverage, and to defend TeamLiquid's unbeaten SCII streak. Stay tuned for those reports.
This means there will be more Zerg tomorrow? and in ENGLISH?! :D
God I'm so disappointed they haven't introduced a new building mechanic than the old hatchery--> larvae--> egg system.. I was expecting something really innovative and interesting, perhaps to do with creep or something but no it's the same so far -_-
On March 10 2008 19:43 alffla wrote: hm................the queen and some other things looked to wc3-ey for me. and units movements are too wc3ey which means slow and cumbersome and looks ..just not sc1ish.
maybe blizzard should've created a new engine instead of just updating the wc3 one a bit :/
the game is probably still not being played in the Fastest speed for demo purposes, in the zerg gameplay video
besides... Savior thinks it's fast.. that should be enough for anyone.
Jesus I JUST saw the trailer that genwar just posted and I fucking loved it. That 1st scene of gameplay where they were overrunning that protoss base just gave me shivers and was the perfect image of the Zerg....so many units just over running the few protoss defenders....I have always liked the Terran and the Protoss races but I have always been drawn to the swarm from the start. I only wish that I was better in BW then at my peak I was only a semi decent player, maybe now with a fresh start in this new game I can be a better player but I doubt it since I start grad school around the time it comes out.
On March 11 2008 00:13 Slaughter)BiO wrote: BTW there seems to be a lot of people who are just giving up hope blizzard will come through? The game isnt even to fucking Beta.....there is SO much time for revision its not even funny, The names can easily be changed and so can a lot of the other qualities such as this concept of the "hero" unit. When sc was in this stage you hardly would have recognized it. That and when it comes to balancing they have beta testing and patches or even like sc1 and add an expansion. The concept of only 1 queen makes sense with the kind of organisms they are trying to model the zerg after. They are modeling them after swarm insects and those species generally only have 1 queen per nest. Maybe they could make them just semi powerful and limit the amount of queens you can have like 1 per hatchery or something. I can see what they are trying to do with only 1 Queen. And why does everyone put so much emphasis on those long huge battles at the end? They just throw in continuous large amounts of units for 3 min with no micro and of course its going to be a cluster fuck, that and adding with the poor quality of the vids. I wish I could see this game 1st hand if only I could be a beta tester!
I think slaughter is right. I would refrain from insulting the intelligence of the Blizzard dev's by saying that SC2 is just gonna be another version of WC3. Blizzard knows that the two games have two different and distinct playstyles and so im sure they will make sure that the mechanics in one game wont overwhelm the mechanics in another. Have faith my fellow starcraft nerds! daddy blizzard will come through ;-)
How come i'm not so sure they do know it ? Just remove this shitty warcraft-in-space 3D graphic and i'd be happy.
God just look at everygame : Everytime they always looked nicer (quake 4, css, etc etc) and still the hardcore gamers stayed with the most ugly game. Why ? Simply BECAUSE OF THE GAMEPLAY ! I don't fucking care about how beautiful this game is, i just want to have fun and not playing an omg -did-you-see-this-snake-on-the-ground-this-is-so-unbelievable's game.
And you know what ? You all know blizzard : They obviously want money. But they will be retarded if they don't make it competitive which is truely the most effective's one to earn the most.
Edit : I know they know it but they'll first make this game looks nice then they will balance it. I predict at least 20 patches within 1 year or 2. Wanna bet ?
Patches happen because they cannot predict just innovative gamers can be. With so many people playing things come up and people find ways to find imbalances to exploit, which leads to them. It happned with the original sc and with wc3 so you are probably right.
Did you start by saying everything was fine and say just remove the graphics, AND THEN move on to say how its nothing to do with graphics and gameplay only? Make up your mind before bitching about something
Finally, some news about the zerg! I'm glad to hear that they aren't super similar but I share the same opinion about "hero" units. I figure we'll see how it plays out and then whine. In the past few hours, mutas and hydras were added to the new zerg section on starcraft2.com.
Some unintentional mistakes here from Blizzard due to either good and bad coding and the game engine, explanation:
- A.I. Pathing is too good! This means that Units tighten up too much and will get a much better punch on the attack compared to SC 1 while becoming more vulnerable to area attack (which seems nerfed in this game.) "Retain formation box" or "the magic box" should still be in the game imo.
- Attack move and A.I. targetting much too powerful on the same basis as above! This means that a human control ling/zealot battle will have very little too gain and may actually be worse than letting the game A.I. sort out targetting and moving by itself. This is a game destroyer right here!
- Air units decelerate to attack instantly. Retain acceleration, unit stacking for air to give players to abilities to do hit and runs like before.
- Turnrates. They shouldn't be in the game period with the exception of specific units for very specific reasons. Again, this will limit your ablitiy to dance with units in combat and make it sluggish, making it better in many cases to just let the "A.I. do it's thing." Players don't care if it looks unrealistic or not, but they will care if the units don't respond to orders and gameplay will seem sluggish and unresponsive.
- Unit attack animations waaayyy too long. Again, this means that the difference between player micro and A.I. targetting is negligable. Still too flashy attack visuals and deaths in some cases. Lingering debris and bodies can become confusing as well.
- Many or most unit models are too detailed. Detail means clutter, and in turn make it harder to instantly identify them and their numbers on the battlefield. They should be distict, simple, and possibly even on a "karikatyr" level. (Doesn't translate that well, but the closest is cartoonish, with the emphasis on character and distinctive traits.)
- Other than that, some things looked promising, and most of the imbalanced abilities were gone. I wonder though if banelings aren't currently overpowered like roaches. The baneling is a tricky unit since it needs enough HP:s to get a chance to get close and destruct, but if it has too many it will be destroyed. The same with the Roach, too many HP:s and it will be nearly invincible when introduced, too few and it will be useless lategame. (Roach is thus bad idea for a unit from a gameplay perspective.)
- A final note is that its fine to have straight up movers and shooters because even if they don't have any special abilities per se, they will serve different functions and play differently simply because speed, size, cost, damage, attack rate, projectile speed is different. No need to mediawhore and try too hard to make every unit the next lightbulb.
So while the game still looks interesting, these are some fundamentals to take note of to make a competitive game, and unless they get this into their head, they will fail, and we will have yet another "good, but not greater than itself" game, like broodwar.
Quoted for Truth, I agree with everything he says.
Again, zerg should not have that many spell casters. Dustin said himself that SC is "move n shoot" while WC3 is "spell oriented" Now it looks as if sc is spell oriented. Stay to ur word man!
Blizzard is doing an amazing job with Starcraft 2 and I truly believe it will be better than the original. I will hopefully buy it the day it is released, if my PC can run it.
I gotta say, there's ONE main thing that annoys me-sound effects.
During the final battle sequence, it was full of high pitched squeal and "worghsh.." It was as if I was listening to flocks of seagulls at the beach with fat men grunting as they stepped on seashells.
Anyone else think Blizzard should emphasize roars and explosions more? For instance, cut the volume and machine gun fire and up the sounds of ultralisk blades ripping flesh, metal, etc, have ultras roar as they die rather than sorta collapse. Cut down the sound of the tasery sounding lasers (why won't a hiss do? We already have the visual effect in terms of extremely bright beams) and bring back the sounds of seige tank explosions and archon rage.
And why no squacks of agony when mutas die? Why not splatter of "Blah!" when zerglings burst? Why no, "PSaahhhh, YEAHHHH!" from the marines?
You get my point. I'm disappointed in sound effects. I think if they follow a general pattern of emphasizing large/costly unit sound effects/death effects and cut down on the background noise of the multitude of little guys, the game would be much improved.
3 things I must try out with zerg... 1. use infestor to take out an expo 2. Have Nydus Worm unburrow in the middle of some1's min line and unload an assload of banelings 3. Roach rush 8D
Man there is a lot of whining here, get over it guys this is not even a beta. Also stop that its WC3 in space buhuhuuuuuu he took my candy away frome me buhu crap... the pros said it feels a lot like the original but I´m sure all you guys know better since the amount of hours a pro plays the game in a moth is more or less what you´ve played it in all your life so I´m pretty sure we shouldn´t give a shit about their opinon and listen to a person who hasn´t even played the damn thing!!
I think people need to realize that this is not Starcraft 1 with better graphics. This is not a Starcraft expansion. This is not Starcraft 1.5 This is Starcraft 2.
Things like multiple building selections and setting workers to gain minerals automatically were not in Starcraft 1 because the engine of SC1 limited the game.
This is a new game. There will be things that you don't like... I'm sure there are alot of things in SC1 you don't like but deal with it. It's not supposed to be a perfect game and it's not meant to be SC1 with better graphics and a new story. If that's what you want then wait for Project Revolution and continue to play SC1. There's too much whining by hardcore SC1 fans. You have to realize only a very small part of the market is hardcore/interested in competitive play.
My only worry about this game right now is minimum specs. Everytime I see a video of this game I just pray to god I can run it. (even if that means 640 x 480 and everything on lowest)
^^^^ Blizzard always seems to make their games run on all most every computer. I think you´ll be fine unless you have something like a PIII, if thats the case it´s time to upgrade
The zerg looks hella strong , i like to see their spells thought , hydras are powerful and looks badass, with lurkurs in the game i see more zerg users in the future , too bad ZvZ is hard vs almost every avarage or above player
On March 11 2008 07:09 Troklo wrote: ^^^^ Blizzard always seems to make their games run on all most every computer. I think you´ll be fine unless you have something like a PIII, if thats the case it´s time to upgrade
On March 11 2008 00:13 Slaughter)BiO wrote: BTW there seems to be a lot of people who are just giving up hope blizzard will come through? The game isnt even to fucking Beta.....there is SO much time for revision its not even funny, The names can easily be changed and so can a lot of the other qualities such as this concept of the "hero" unit. When sc was in this stage you hardly would have recognized it. That and when it comes to balancing they have beta testing and patches or even like sc1 and add an expansion. The concept of only 1 queen makes sense with the kind of organisms they are trying to model the zerg after. They are modeling them after swarm insects and those species generally only have 1 queen per nest. Maybe they could make them just semi powerful and limit the amount of queens you can have like 1 per hatchery or something. I can see what they are trying to do with only 1 Queen. And why does everyone put so much emphasis on those long huge battles at the end? They just throw in continuous large amounts of units for 3 min with no micro and of course its going to be a cluster fuck, that and adding with the poor quality of the vids. I wish I could see this game 1st hand if only I could be a beta tester!
I think slaughter is right. I would refrain from insulting the intelligence of the Blizzard dev's by saying that SC2 is just gonna be another version of WC3. Blizzard knows that the two games have two different and distinct playstyles and so im sure they will make sure that the mechanics in one game wont overwhelm the mechanics in another. Have faith my fellow starcraft nerds! daddy blizzard will come through ;-)
How come i'm not so sure they do know it ? Just remove this shitty warcraft-in-space 3D graphic and i'd be happy.
God just look at everygame : Everytime they always looked nicer (quake 4, css, etc etc) and still the hardcore gamers stayed with the most ugly game. Why ? Simply BECAUSE OF THE GAMEPLAY ! I don't fucking care about how beautiful this game is, i just want to have fun and not playing an omg -did-you-see-this-snake-on-the-ground-this-is-so-unbelievable's game.
And you know what ? You all know blizzard : They obviously want money. But they will be retarded if they don't make it competitive which is truely the most effective's one to earn the most.
Edit : I know they know it but they'll first make this game looks nice then they will balance it. I predict at least 20 patches within 1 year or 2. Wanna bet ?
Don't be on idiot , Blizzard always thinks about GAMEPLAY first , they are now showing us random crap just to motivate us , when they finish the game it will be picture perfect both gameplay graficks , balance and all , it is simply because they are blizzard .
Do u think u ppl have bad pcs? well i have a P IV 1800 with 124 RAM 40 Gb HD and ... oh yeah an integrated video card. :S If thats not enough it took me like 10 minutes to write this because my internet conex dies every fucking minute making my pc to get freezed until it reconects.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THE HIGH QUALITY GAME PLAY VIDEO! I watch it 5 minutes ago... 500 mb of Starcraft 2 Video and its soooo awesome, you will recognize every single unit and wow.. looks so amazing and fast!
On March 11 2008 18:26 G.s)NarutO wrote: I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THE HIGH QUALITY GAME PLAY VIDEO! I watch it 5 minutes ago... 500 mb of Starcraft 2 Video and its soooo awesome, you will recognize every single unit and wow.. looks so amazing and fast!
Is this the old HQ video or is ist a new one with Zerg game play?
am I the only one who thinks that this game needs A LOT MORE improvement? The graphics and tileset are basically war3ish. Also the camera angle is war3ish and it is a bit too close.
There is way too much going on in battles in terms of special effects. Let's not start with MBS or the MUS . Ugh... the same thing that happened in sc 1 where it looked like war1 or war 2 in the beta is happening in sc 2.
Blizzard has a lot of improvement to do on this. Bah even the fog of war looks bah... you guys have no idea how disappointed I am right now.
Anyways, I hope they also make the zerg more... zergish?
[just my opinion of the zerg look so far] i dont know , the only zerg units i really like so far are zerglings , ultralisks and the queen.the rest (including the buildings) look like some fluffy-tuffy fantasy units from the WoW universe. whats up with that whole pink egyptian insect look?not very zergish imo. the way they look at the moment , i can imagine kids having a lurker as a soft toy at home in sc1 they were ugly,slimy and first of all SCARY.you were really "oh shhHT!" when you saw a zerg unit.i dont get that feeling from the videos so far... [/just my opinion of the zerg look so far]
EPT
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Manifesto7/sc2ultras.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Manifesto7/20080310122714_f2a9e9de.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/staff/Manifesto7/progamerssc2.jpg)
? j/k^^
