Something tells me Zell didn't actually play SC1 past the intro movie.

You mean when it was like Warhammer?

Hey this one seems like it actually has a story.

I agree.

Blizzard has totally lost the gritty feel.

I liked the old image of the Terran structures being rusty and close to collapse, and look like they've been repaired by a rag tag crew for the past 20 years - it gave a good "far from home" feel to it.

Also, that movie reminded me of a WoW preview but with Starcraft characters. Which I don't like.

Played both SC1 and Brood Wars several times through, actually.

And, what Reid said. I think it has something to do with the original team that made SC1 and Diablo 1 no longer existing. If you compare them, Diablo 3 is cartoony now. It's because the same artists that worked on WoW are doing Diablo 3. It's a real shame. The community outcry has been huge, but they aren't doing a thing about it. Kind of disappointing of Blizzard, to be honest.

Actually, I don't understand. The original announcement teaser was awesome. Then there's that piece of crap video on the last page. Where did the transition from epic space battling and brutal alien killing to cheesy love story in space happen?

Piece of crap? That trailer was *really good*.

Also...I don't know why you're so upset about the love background between Kerrigan and Raynor in SC2. I mean, it was in both SC1 and Brood Wars too.

Exactly. Almost everything in that video is just building on the framework of SC1.

Also, to people who mentioned not liking the micromanaging aspects of Starcraft as of late:

Not everyone is that good, and since they use a ranking system now, you have a good chance of never being forced into "Korean-level" play. In addition, there's something else everyone seems to be forgetting. Arguably the most awesome, most played aspect of Starcraft:

USE MAP SETTINGS.

Already in SC1 people implemented some amazing stuff, and the tools back then were extremely limited.

But even in the beta, there's people doing things like:

A. A higher quality, awesome Smash TV game.
B. An "MMO".
C. A FPS in the Starcraft universe.
D. Tetris.

And obviously there will be many comebacks of old favorites like the various defense games. To me, those were far more important and played far more often by non-Korean players

I don't really like micromanagement aspects at all. It's one of the reasons why I prefer other games. :p Another would be the seemingly tiny maps combined with settings related issues (Wait, this is what I get for artillery?).

The problem is with the way BNet 2.0 handles the UMS system. Instead of a list of servers with names (Like Warcraft 3), it ranks maps by Popularity, and hosts all the games on the BNet servers, instead of a local host system. First off, this makes it impossible to have games within a game that people can join, like having the host choose All Random or All Pick heroes in a DOTA style map. The system also makes it difficult for new maps to get noticed, where a normal server list could intrigue someone into finding a new map while looking for something they'd played before. The lack of local servers makes it difficult for server tools like the ones created for Warcraft 3, that would find banned players via IP, auto host games, etc.

It also allows people to hijack the system, by creating a new map with the same name, and getting it to the top of the list with a small circle of friends. On the beta servers, there was a popular Tower Defense map that got hijacked, which gave the red player infinite money at the beginning of the map, completely destroying the game. It stayed at the top of the list until the end of beta.

The system is a step backward, akin to what Activision did with the MW2 PC client, or Apple's App Store. It feels like a half hearted attempt to appease PC gamers with "Mods", but still holding strict control over what's popular and what's not, what gets released and what doesn't. A mod maker working with a rival company (IE: Icefrog, creator of DOTA, working for Valve), could be locked out of the system by Activision.

Blizzard already said they're addressing the hijacking map issue but that it wouldn't be fixed during beta.

How would you definitely address an issue like that? There will always be more ways to hijack...

So that just leaves the multitude of other issues and the fact that they're setting back Mod making 20 years.

I think you're extremely exaggerating the issue. I don't even know what you were referring to before, because when I played Starcraft, finding a specific map to play on was nearly impossible, as everyone had a slightly different version of the same thing. In fact, the hijacking issue applied just as much then, except there you had even less idea of what you were getting into.

Besides, hosting on Blizzard servers was actually a common /request/ by the community to combat that issue.

That doesn't change my dislike of micromanaging. It's not a question of skill, it's a question of gameplay.
I will still find micromanaging tedious and annoying no matter what the skill of my opponent.

But, I do look forward to some of the other kinds of maps. Those are (some of) the reasons I got right into Warcraft 3.

Already received the shipment notice from amazon yesterday. Unfortunately it didn't arrive today.

The point was that lower skill level players won't micromanage.

Yeah, just building a ****-ton of Hydras and sending them at the enemy while rebuilding everything I lost in the first wave usually worked quite well.

Yeah, that still doesn't address the issue for me. If it's there and helps you in the game, it should be done. I wanna play the game to the best of my ability.

I do deal with it, by not playing it =p
I didn't come into this thread to crap on the game or anything though, I was just responding to CM's post. I'm still looking forward to mods

Yes, because Diablo II was so drab and boring.

Wait, someone said D3 was cartoony? It looks a lot grittier then D2 to me

Man, why do people never get that argument. There is a definite change in artistic style between D1/2 and D3. It has nothing to do with color.

Actually I find the definite change (to cartoony) is between D1 and D2, D3 is more back to it's roots. Who said anything about colour?

JM sarcastically said it was drab, implying that it was in fact colorful.

Anyway, there's no denying that Diablo III, Starcraft 2, and World of Warcraft all have basically the same art style, just in a different setting.

The entire reason I am buying this is for UMS.

Woohooo! Got it!

Now all I've got to do is get home...

.

You're surprised by that? I could have told you that'd happen

Verdammt!

Enjoying your Activision-Blizzard Product?

I think you mean any major game released in the past 3 years.

Now that I think about it, this actually is the first PC game I bought in about three years.

Blizzard has some of the nicer protection. There's a lot worse out there

Stop ruining my :smug: dammit.

What's really pissing me off at the moment is that the price at amazon (and everywhere else) is now 5 Euros less. Had I just bought it on release day I would've gotten the same expirience (minus the frustration) for a lower price.

Cant you just unplug the internet and reset the date to something past 7/27?

Except it requires the internet to activate?

The internet doesn't know what the hell the time is, you shut the hell up!