StarCraft II

[Taylor]

Fixed today and the Map Editor is now live

OT: $3.5m on virtual horses.

[sarge mat]

Want in even more now

[Sentura]

wow am i the only one not signed up for this beta?

[-HP-]

wow am i the only one not signed up for this beta?

I didn't either, lol.

[Zyn]

God fukken damnit, I still havn't got any key and it's the editor I'm interested in.

[wacko]

Those who want a key just PM me your Battle.net account email and I will get you a key

[sarge mat]

done

(at least i think it sent)

[Jetsetlemming]

Just played my first match of SC2 as a friend invited me earlier today. That was actually pretty awesome. It played similar to SC, except with most of my control issues gone, such as the 12 unit selection cap and having to hit ctrl+number to make groups (the new buttons on the hud you click are a stroke of genius for making groups, seriously). I also liked that there were boulders blocking the base entrances of me and the other guy. I've always thought RTS's could use mid-map objective sort of deals to open paths. I'd love to see it expanded even more, whether in a mod or for reals, with workers being able to build ramps and bridges or dig trenches.

I also liked the new Terran units. I was Terran, the other guy was Zerg, so I spawned a whole ton of Marines, Hellions (flamethrowers on dune buggies? Best unit concept ever), and Banshees. At the end I made a Battlecruiser to take out his hive. I got used to the new Terran units, or at least the ones I used, very quickly.

I didn't, however, know what the fuck I was looking at for most of the Zerg stuff. I recognized drones, and overlords, and I think those things popping out of dead buildings might've been zerglings, but beyond that the zerg player had a whole bunch of weird shit I'd never seen before. Scorpion looking AA units, big spiny brown things I think might've been some sort of hydralisk version, exploding black things that popped out of the ground and destroyed my first wave of marines. Didn't recognize any of the buildings besides the hive and gas extractors, either. Does SC2 have some sort of ingame encyclopedia or quick guide to alien forces? Because that would be handy. I'm sure the SP campaign would introduce all of these things, but that's not available to me yet.

Also that big sand monster looking thing that popped out of the ground, roared, and sunk back when I killed certain zerg buildings looked AWESOME. I was hoping/expecting/waiting for it to be an actual defensive creature he'd built that would pop out under my dudes and eat them at some point, and was sad when I destroyed his hive and he quit without that ever happening.

Ingame username of "Jetsetlemmin" (Man it sucks when there's arbitrary char limits on names, since mine's long ) if anyone wants to play with me sometime.

Edit: Also, I want to say I was pretty happy with performance. My GPU's an integrated Geforce 6150, way below minimum spec, but at 1024x768 and minimum settings it was perfectly playable. Moving the camera was a bit wonky, it would overshoot a bit in the direction I was holding and take a bit to respond to me pushing an arrow key in the first place, but I mostly just click the minimap to look around anyway. I didn't have any control issues with selecting and ordering units around, even when inside the other guy's base and everything fighting. Actually, I didn't notice the framerate wavering at all, whether I was looking at a barren section of the map or right in the middle of a battle.

[Skjalg]

The small units that come out of the zerg structures are something similar to brood lings from the original.

You can find a lot of info on sc2 armory http://sc2armory.com/game/zerg/tech_tree

[Jetsetlemming]

Urgh. My second SC2 match, I had worse FPS than before (different map I guess), and I was cocky from my first so I tried something dumb (lifting off my barracks and flying it to the enemy expo outside his base, only to find that in the time it took me to get that barracks he'd already built a second hq), and overall against a zerg player who knew what he was doing. I went heavy on marines and medivac, he went heavy on hydralisks, I thought I'd build up a banshee fleet, he got mutalisks, I started prepping for a nuke run but the macro of handling multiple bases and production of all those units and keeping SCVs busy and setting up AA to keep the mutalisks out of my hair.. I just couldn't do it.

Edit: Holy shit it was the same map. I just watched the replay. I also realized that I pretty much quit before anything really significant happened as far as securing a victory or loss for anybody. I'm such a quitter.

[wacko]

So i got all those who PMed me on the list and they should get invites soon.

[Sentura]

So i got all those who PMed me on the list and they should get invites soon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aY47rCD04w

[Zyn]

I got a beta-key elsewhere now already but I am pretty sure a guildmate or my brother wouldn't mind. We'll see.

All I've doing is messing around with the map-editor..

Cataclysm beta-key kthx.

[skdr]

July 27.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/63613

[Jetsetlemming]

Had a really fun match against a friend of mine today. We went back and forth pretty much all round, and in the end they won with like three minor buildings left out of all their stuff. As far as I'm concerned, they just lost the least

I also learned some lessons. For example, I don't think next time I'm going to bother with my normal expansion, I'll just go straight to packing a command center full of SCVs and flying them to the island in the corner of the map where I can build a battlecruiser fleet in peace.

What's funny is that this same player used to walk all over me in SC1. The interface and unit changes have really made a difference for me.

I'm still terrible against pretty much everyone, though. My current record is one win, and four losses now, so far.