To everyone wondering why Blizzard might not be implementing a strategic zoom (as seen in games like SupCom and Sins of a Solar Empire), it all boils down to one main reason: Online Competition. If one were to look at both the games with stratzoom, they would realize these games lack a competitive base as large as more tactical games like Warcraft 3, Starcraft, Command and Conquer 3, Company of Heroes, etc. This article has some pretty good points concerning SupCom and online competitive play: http://www.ggl.com/?controller=News&id=4648&method=article
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They do describe some issues with the way SupCom made their game, but it's not the fault of zooming, it's the fault of map size.
I think the biggest complain from the reviewers is it's not a skirmish battle, but a army vs army. In the end nothing that is written in that article will apply to SC2 anyway.
Again no reason to be against zooming. I understand an old school feel for no zoom, no turning the screen etc. But at the same time those options add to gameplay. You can use that.
But we can discuss the lack of zooming, but it's just not in. The game doesn't have stunning graphics, which is a big shame and people who say it runs on every computer fail to realize that a bit more graphics wouldn't have hurt the people playing it.
But look at all blizzards games, it's the same with almost all of them. I think only Diablo 1 was working with heavy graphics requirements for it's time, requiring a 3d card. Everything else runs on computers people don't have anymore. Sure graphics aren't all, but it's just not great to look at these graphics while playing a game in 2010. Sure Koreans will be playing this game for 5 years or 10, but who cares about them? I don't really care about if my neighbor can play it, if it runs great on my computer.
And don't forget, you have to keep these graphics until 2020. When SC3 will be released. I really hope Diablo 3 has better graphics.
I think the biggest complain from the reviewers is it's not a skirmish battle, but a army vs army. In the end nothing that is written in that article will apply to SC2 anyway.
Again no reason to be against zooming. I understand an old school feel for no zoom, no turning the screen etc. But at the same time those options add to gameplay. You can use that.
But we can discuss the lack of zooming, but it's just not in. The game doesn't have stunning graphics, which is a big shame and people who say it runs on every computer fail to realize that a bit more graphics wouldn't have hurt the people playing it.
But look at all blizzards games, it's the same with almost all of them. I think only Diablo 1 was working with heavy graphics requirements for it's time, requiring a 3d card. Everything else runs on computers people don't have anymore. Sure graphics aren't all, but it's just not great to look at these graphics while playing a game in 2010. Sure Koreans will be playing this game for 5 years or 10, but who cares about them? I don't really care about if my neighbor can play it, if it runs great on my computer.
And don't forget, you have to keep these graphics until 2020. When SC3 will be released. I really hope Diablo 3 has better graphics.
My hope is Blizzard working out alot of the annoyances of SC I. For ex, Tiny groupings were terrible in SC 1, you couldn't set miners to auto-mine upon creation, you could only tell units to perform one task at a time (with the exception of moving and repairing). It ended up turning the game into a constant ADD click fest. Asians may love this, but the heart of the game should always be your strategy, and your ability to macro-multitask; not your ability to click 100 times per second.
[citation][nom]ct1615[/nom]imagine, a game developer focusing on game play rather then graphics, what is the world coming to?![/citation]
Yeah give me things like portal instead of another clone with better graphics. O wait the majority of players found portal confusing, hard and lost interest long before the end... Maybe thats something to do with it. Most people arent prepared to learn new games that requires different thought patterns.
Yeah give me things like portal instead of another clone with better graphics. O wait the majority of players found portal confusing, hard and lost interest long before the end... Maybe thats something to do with it. Most people arent prepared to learn new games that requires different thought patterns.
kelemvor4
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[citation][nom]cliffro[/nom]Its either an illegitimate crack or a legit key....not a legit crack. Since this uses Battle.net I'm sure it requires a legit key, so a crack of any kind would not work.[/citation]
Hopefully it won't require the dvd in the drive to play since it requires battle.net. Otherwise cracks will be important. Having to put a disc in the drive every time you want to play a game REALLY sucks. It's one of the reasons I don't like console gaming as much as pc gaming. In the end though; even if there isn't a crack released - I'm sure clonedvd will solve the problem.
Hopefully it won't require the dvd in the drive to play since it requires battle.net. Otherwise cracks will be important. Having to put a disc in the drive every time you want to play a game REALLY sucks. It's one of the reasons I don't like console gaming as much as pc gaming. In the end though; even if there isn't a crack released - I'm sure clonedvd will solve the problem.
You're kidding right? My friends and I still go back and play those games because they play so well even against today's RTSes. Even on battle.net you can find people playing and an entire country like Korea still plays SC.
For years blizzard stated that the camera zoom is give everyone a fair playing field. They are focusing on gameplay first and foremost and that I respect and that's what makes blizzard so great.
[citation][nom]drowned[/nom]My hope is Blizzard working out alot of the annoyances of SC I. For ex, Tiny groupings were terrible in SC 1, you couldn't set miners to auto-mine upon creation, you could only tell units to perform one task at a time (with the exception of moving and repairing). It ended up turning the game into a constant ADD click fest. Asians may love this, but the heart of the game should always be your strategy, and your ability to macro-multitask; not your ability to click 100 times per second.[/citation]
Be reassured, the game got simplified a lot where it matters and AI is way better now. The game uses infinite grouping and you can make good use of rally point and queuing.
And imho, the game looks good. The graphics are clean and it's easy to understand what's going on. Graphics might not be the most pretty and shiny, but it's not graphics that make you play after the first few months, it's the deep gameplay.
Be reassured, the game got simplified a lot where it matters and AI is way better now. The game uses infinite grouping and you can make good use of rally point and queuing.
And imho, the game looks good. The graphics are clean and it's easy to understand what's going on. Graphics might not be the most pretty and shiny, but it's not graphics that make you play after the first few months, it's the deep gameplay.
[citation][nom]trkorecky[/nom]What is it with RTS developers deciding that, even with the widespread use of 1680x1050 and higher resolution monitors, we should only have the ability to see a building and perhaps a handful of units on screen at the same time? Is it really that difficult to zoom the heck out or am I just spoiled by the use of my mouse wheel to zoom in Supreme Commander?Might as well keep playing at 640x480 or 800x600 at this rate...[/citation]
Couldn't agree more. +1
Couldn't agree more. +1
[citation][nom]trkorecky[/nom]What is it with RTS developers deciding that, even with the widespread use of 1680x1050 and higher resolution monitors, we should only have the ability to see a building and perhaps a handful of units on screen at the same time? Is it really that difficult to zoom the heck out or am I just spoiled by the use of my mouse wheel to zoom in Supreme Commander?Might as well keep playing at 640x480 or 800x600 at this rate...[/citation]
I suppose it makes it a more hectic and personal experience, as well as keeping the challenge of macro management. tho that last thing is like saying FPS with a controller is good, because it takes lots of skill just to move and aim...
I suppose it makes it a more hectic and personal experience, as well as keeping the challenge of macro management. tho that last thing is like saying FPS with a controller is good, because it takes lots of skill just to move and aim...
Adroid
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Remember that starcraft 1 is still being used for tournament play worldwide.
I think they were smart not re-inventing the wheel here.
The main draw is that the races are incredibly balanced, and the play style is very fast, cut throat type combat.
I am in the beta and the new units are very nice. Maybe a few minor balance issues still but overall its got Blizzards shine already.
One thing I would ask for?
Supreme commander type zoom out/in camera control. One you have played Supcom, in my opinion, its hard to look at another RTS the same again.
I think they were smart not re-inventing the wheel here.
The main draw is that the races are incredibly balanced, and the play style is very fast, cut throat type combat.
I am in the beta and the new units are very nice. Maybe a few minor balance issues still but overall its got Blizzards shine already.
One thing I would ask for?
Supreme commander type zoom out/in camera control. One you have played Supcom, in my opinion, its hard to look at another RTS the same again.
sambadagio
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Please please developer, buy Supreme Commander and learn, how to build and implement a decent zoom!!
stradric
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Very little of this discussion is actually about the article. I've played the beta and I can say that the graphics are very nice. There is a lot of personality and character -- something that Supreme Commander lacks immensely. Unit animations and incidental animations are prolific and very well done. It amazes me that they even call this thing a beta. Anyway, I have a far more in-depth take on this game than the Tom's article:
With Zerg:
-now Overlords can spawn creep when standing still, I guess to revitalize units on the field.
-Queens can spawn creep tumors that spread creep instead of having to waste a unit like in the last game.
-Queens can force a hatchery to spit out more larvae. It's not instant though.
-You can make an unlimited amount of queens.
-You need a Lair (upgraded Hatchery) to make the hydralisk den, so hydralisks are difficult to build up to.
-The "roach warren" comes after the spawning pool, so roaches are early unit
-The hatchery has 2 separate rally points -- one for workers and one for other units. This lets you rally workers automatically to mine while keeping your other units out of the way.
-Selecting all larvae and building a unit doesn't make all larvae build that unit. Just one at a time. So if you want to build say 3 drones with 3 larvae, you have to press 'D' 3 times or click the drone 3 times. It makes it a ton easier now, and makes that advantage of the zerg that much more pronounced.
With Terran:
-You no longer attach an upgrade to the command center. You just upgrade the command center. So no lift off to use the other upgrade.
-Nukes are made at the ghost facility -- only one per facility, but they build in 60 seconds.
-There's now an indicator for nukes so you know when you can get out of dodge rather than just waiting for the laser to disappear like the last game
-Ghosts have a sniper shot ability -- cost 25 energy, long range, takes away 45 health, bypasses armor, only works on biological units. For reference, upgraded marines have 55 health.
-Ghosts have a "hold fire" ability so they don't give up their cover in cloak. It makes them stand still though.
-Barracks and Factory can be given attachment that lets them build 2 units simultaneously -- only marines and hellions though. Other units require a different attachment.
With Protoss:
-The gateway can be turned into a warp thingy or back again. So you can warp units to anywhere where there is a pylon.
-The transport unit can turn into a pylon on the fly allowing you to warp units there.
-You need one warp gateway to warp one unit. The more warp gateways, the more units you can warp.
-There's a little warp gateway hot-button on the bottom right when you have one. So it's really convenient.
-Both dark templar and high templar turn into regular archons. No more dark archon.
-Much like the zerg larvae, selecting say 8 templar and turning them into archons only does one at a time. So you'd need to hit it 4 times to turn 8 templar into 4 archon.
-Same thing... Having say 5 warp gateways, you can only select all of them from the hot-button. Warping in a unit does not warp in 5 of them. It warps one and you have to click it 5 times to warp in 5 of them.
In general:
-Queuing up moves is pretty much damn near perfect. You can hold shift to issue multiple commands. If it's a building, holding shift while building that building keeps you in that mode. So you can hold shift and build 4 of a certain building (like protoss towers). You could do that in the old game, but you kept having to go back into build > tower > click. Now it's just build > tower > shift+click click click click click
-You can also queue up other moves. So you can say move a bunch of zerglings here and then burrow when you get there. Just right click to move, hold shift and hit burrow. They'll walk over there and burrow when they get there. Awesome.
-You can select an arbitrary number of units. It gives you page tabs to manage the selection.
-You can hit tab with a selected large group of different units to sub-select groups of each type. This lets you cast. I haven't figured out how to sub-select otherwise.
-As with the old game, ctrl+click selects all of that type. Shift+click adds or removes a unit from the group. Likewise, the same works when managing a selection.
-You can select multiple buildings and distribute build tasks. For example, select 3 barracks and build 3 marines. It will build one on each barracks.
As far as tactical zoom goes. That's simply not blizzard's style. There's a mini-map. That's Starcraft. If you don't like it, then maybe Starcraft is not for you.
With Zerg:
-now Overlords can spawn creep when standing still, I guess to revitalize units on the field.
-Queens can spawn creep tumors that spread creep instead of having to waste a unit like in the last game.
-Queens can force a hatchery to spit out more larvae. It's not instant though.
-You can make an unlimited amount of queens.
-You need a Lair (upgraded Hatchery) to make the hydralisk den, so hydralisks are difficult to build up to.
-The "roach warren" comes after the spawning pool, so roaches are early unit
-The hatchery has 2 separate rally points -- one for workers and one for other units. This lets you rally workers automatically to mine while keeping your other units out of the way.
-Selecting all larvae and building a unit doesn't make all larvae build that unit. Just one at a time. So if you want to build say 3 drones with 3 larvae, you have to press 'D' 3 times or click the drone 3 times. It makes it a ton easier now, and makes that advantage of the zerg that much more pronounced.
With Terran:
-You no longer attach an upgrade to the command center. You just upgrade the command center. So no lift off to use the other upgrade.
-Nukes are made at the ghost facility -- only one per facility, but they build in 60 seconds.
-There's now an indicator for nukes so you know when you can get out of dodge rather than just waiting for the laser to disappear like the last game
-Ghosts have a sniper shot ability -- cost 25 energy, long range, takes away 45 health, bypasses armor, only works on biological units. For reference, upgraded marines have 55 health.
-Ghosts have a "hold fire" ability so they don't give up their cover in cloak. It makes them stand still though.
-Barracks and Factory can be given attachment that lets them build 2 units simultaneously -- only marines and hellions though. Other units require a different attachment.
With Protoss:
-The gateway can be turned into a warp thingy or back again. So you can warp units to anywhere where there is a pylon.
-The transport unit can turn into a pylon on the fly allowing you to warp units there.
-You need one warp gateway to warp one unit. The more warp gateways, the more units you can warp.
-There's a little warp gateway hot-button on the bottom right when you have one. So it's really convenient.
-Both dark templar and high templar turn into regular archons. No more dark archon.
-Much like the zerg larvae, selecting say 8 templar and turning them into archons only does one at a time. So you'd need to hit it 4 times to turn 8 templar into 4 archon.
-Same thing... Having say 5 warp gateways, you can only select all of them from the hot-button. Warping in a unit does not warp in 5 of them. It warps one and you have to click it 5 times to warp in 5 of them.
In general:
-Queuing up moves is pretty much damn near perfect. You can hold shift to issue multiple commands. If it's a building, holding shift while building that building keeps you in that mode. So you can hold shift and build 4 of a certain building (like protoss towers). You could do that in the old game, but you kept having to go back into build > tower > click. Now it's just build > tower > shift+click click click click click
-You can also queue up other moves. So you can say move a bunch of zerglings here and then burrow when you get there. Just right click to move, hold shift and hit burrow. They'll walk over there and burrow when they get there. Awesome.
-You can select an arbitrary number of units. It gives you page tabs to manage the selection.
-You can hit tab with a selected large group of different units to sub-select groups of each type. This lets you cast. I haven't figured out how to sub-select otherwise.
-As with the old game, ctrl+click selects all of that type. Shift+click adds or removes a unit from the group. Likewise, the same works when managing a selection.
-You can select multiple buildings and distribute build tasks. For example, select 3 barracks and build 3 marines. It will build one on each barracks.
As far as tactical zoom goes. That's simply not blizzard's style. There's a mini-map. That's Starcraft. If you don't like it, then maybe Starcraft is not for you.
icepick314
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RADIO_ACTIVE
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I have to say the BETA is AWSOME!!!
I love the new interface. Just wish they would release the whole damn thing so I can play single player 🙁
I love the new interface. Just wish they would release the whole damn thing so I can play single player 🙁
stradric
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[citation][nom]icepick314[/nom]but can you play it offline LAN?that's the question....[/citation]
Are you really asking if the online multiplayer beta can be played offline? The answer is no. That doesn't even make any sense.
The final product will require an internet connection for local play via "pseudo-LAN". I'm pretty sure that hasn't changed since Blizzard announced it last year. You'll only be able to play single player offline as a guest account.
Are you really asking if the online multiplayer beta can be played offline? The answer is no. That doesn't even make any sense.
The final product will require an internet connection for local play via "pseudo-LAN". I'm pretty sure that hasn't changed since Blizzard announced it last year. You'll only be able to play single player offline as a guest account.
If they want to keep the gameplay fair, why not just create game sessions based on specific resolution, so other players with the same game resolution can join the game with identical resolution?
For example, If a person create a game based on resolution that is not widescreen, why force other people to stretch their monitors to follow that?
For example, If a person create a game based on resolution that is not widescreen, why force other people to stretch their monitors to follow that?
magnus dredd
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I've played Supreme Commander. I stomped the Holy Hell out of it. I got bored and quit playing it.
I was really looking forward to Starcraft 2, but then the fscking Battlenet annoucement was made. I cancelled my pre-order.
One of the awesome things about Starcraft and most Blizzard games made before the obsession with WOW, was that you don't need a brand new, overpriced, 17 pound SLI-supporting laptop to play them decently. In fact they'd work on laptops that weren't all that new. This meant that if you had a couple of laptops, a lan game could be a non-planned spur of the moment thing that could happen anywhere.
A couple of years ago, my wife and I played a game of Starcraft while at the gate in the Maui airport. The Maui airport concourse does not have restaurants, gift shops, or walls!!! They sure as hell did't have internet access.
The truly sad thing is that it's not just me this hurts. Our military men and women, when they are deployed to trouble spots around the world often do not have personal internet access. So apparently no Starcraft multi-player for our deployed soldiers either... This is better at least that Ubisoft, where our armed forces won't even be able to play single player. Way to support the troops, Blizzard!!
Lastly, I only play multi-player games with my friends. I have ZERO interest in dealing with the swarms of foul mouthed, oboxious, poorly socialized 14 year olds who plague these types of service these days. For that matter, I don't want to deal with the well-behaved ones either. I simply want to start a game, have my friends/family join, and spend some quality time...
I was really looking forward to Starcraft 2, but then the fscking Battlenet annoucement was made. I cancelled my pre-order.
One of the awesome things about Starcraft and most Blizzard games made before the obsession with WOW, was that you don't need a brand new, overpriced, 17 pound SLI-supporting laptop to play them decently. In fact they'd work on laptops that weren't all that new. This meant that if you had a couple of laptops, a lan game could be a non-planned spur of the moment thing that could happen anywhere.
A couple of years ago, my wife and I played a game of Starcraft while at the gate in the Maui airport. The Maui airport concourse does not have restaurants, gift shops, or walls!!! They sure as hell did't have internet access.
The truly sad thing is that it's not just me this hurts. Our military men and women, when they are deployed to trouble spots around the world often do not have personal internet access. So apparently no Starcraft multi-player for our deployed soldiers either... This is better at least that Ubisoft, where our armed forces won't even be able to play single player. Way to support the troops, Blizzard!!
Lastly, I only play multi-player games with my friends. I have ZERO interest in dealing with the swarms of foul mouthed, oboxious, poorly socialized 14 year olds who plague these types of service these days. For that matter, I don't want to deal with the well-behaved ones either. I simply want to start a game, have my friends/family join, and spend some quality time...
magnus dredd
Distinguished
- Mar 1, 2010
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- 18,510
I've played Supreme Commander. I stomped the Holy Hell out of it. I got bored and quit playing it.
I was really looking forward to Starcraft 2, but then the fscking Battlenet annoucement was made. I cancelled my pre-order.
One of the awesome things about Starcraft and most Blizzard games made before the obsession with WOW, was that you don't need a brand new, overpriced, 17 pound SLI-supporting laptop to play them decently. In fact they'd work on laptops that weren't all that new. This meant that if you had a couple of laptops, a lan game could be a non-planned spur of the moment thing that could happen anywhere.
A couple of years ago, my wife and I played a game of Starcraft while at the gate in the Maui airport. The Maui airport concourse does not have restaurants, gift shops, or walls!!! They sure as hell did't have internet access.
The truly sad thing is that it's not just me this hurts. Our military men and women, when they are deployed to trouble spots around the world often do not have personal internet access. So apparently no Starcraft multi-player for our deployed soldiers either... This is better at least that Ubisoft, where our armed forces won't even be able to play single player. Way to support the troops, Blizzard!!
Lastly, I only play multi-player games with my friends and family. I have ZERO interest in dealing with the swarms of foul mouthed, oboxious, poorly socialized 14 year olds who plague these types of service these days. For that matter, I don't want to deal with the well-behaved ones either. I simply want to start a game, have my friends/family join, and spend some quality time...
I was really looking forward to Starcraft 2, but then the fscking Battlenet annoucement was made. I cancelled my pre-order.
One of the awesome things about Starcraft and most Blizzard games made before the obsession with WOW, was that you don't need a brand new, overpriced, 17 pound SLI-supporting laptop to play them decently. In fact they'd work on laptops that weren't all that new. This meant that if you had a couple of laptops, a lan game could be a non-planned spur of the moment thing that could happen anywhere.
A couple of years ago, my wife and I played a game of Starcraft while at the gate in the Maui airport. The Maui airport concourse does not have restaurants, gift shops, or walls!!! They sure as hell did't have internet access.
The truly sad thing is that it's not just me this hurts. Our military men and women, when they are deployed to trouble spots around the world often do not have personal internet access. So apparently no Starcraft multi-player for our deployed soldiers either... This is better at least that Ubisoft, where our armed forces won't even be able to play single player. Way to support the troops, Blizzard!!
Lastly, I only play multi-player games with my friends and family. I have ZERO interest in dealing with the swarms of foul mouthed, oboxious, poorly socialized 14 year olds who plague these types of service these days. For that matter, I don't want to deal with the well-behaved ones either. I simply want to start a game, have my friends/family join, and spend some quality time...
bildo123
Distinguished
- Feb 6, 2007
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[citation][nom]trkorecky[/nom]What is it with RTS developers deciding that, even with the widespread use of 1680x1050 and higher resolution monitors, we should only have the ability to see a building and perhaps a handful of units on screen at the same time? Is it really that difficult to zoom the heck out or am I just spoiled by the use of my mouse wheel to zoom in Supreme Commander?Might as well keep playing at 640x480 or 800x600 at this rate...[/citation]
There's actually a really simply answer. To keep things fair.
There's actually a really simply answer. To keep things fair.
Honestly, the graphics don't look very hot and the zoom makes me claustrophobic. Why not just fire up SC1 if that's all we're getting? I don't know that I'll be buying into SC2 unless there's a few surprises in these areas upon release.
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