StarCraft 2 Beta anyone?

[Sargeras]

I got my invites last night. Give me names to look up and we can duke it out!

[Fairweather Pure]

My WotLK invite was kind of an eye opener for me in terms of Beta participation. It really dimished the impact of the actual release. Furthermore, I felt kind of useless in the testing department since I was in the second round of invites that every single bug I found had been reported long before I arrived on the scene. I've opted into the SC2 beta, but if I don't get in it's no big deal to me at all. Of course, if I did get in that would be cool too. I fall back on the fact, once again, that I have so many games to play right now that will keep me busy prior to the actual launch of the game. This was not true when WotLK was in Beta, since WoW was all I played I couldn't wait to get that beta invite!

I'm also much more interested in the single player campaign and editor than actual PvP in SC2, neither of which are available for beta testing.

I'm glad we have a VV that's playing. For the love of God, keep us updated. Post some impressions. Give us some infoz!

[Animalor]

None for me..

[Kwonryu DragonFist]

Roaches are Overpowered!!!!

[Canelek]

Why bother? Starcraft 1 will still be a national event in Korea until at least 2020.

[Sajko]

Need betaaaa! Cry.

[Boogahz]

Aren't they just re-releasing Starcraft 1?

[Kwonryu DragonFist]

Best thing with Starcraft 2 is /dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z0E-Zjusns

[Sajko]

Will suck weewee for beta kee!

[Sartori]

Don't have anything against Korea, but for my entire life I could not possibly care less what anyone considers a national event over there ...

[Sajko]

Any of you Blizzcon goers who aren't that interested wanna like... let me use their account?

[Winnow]

For people that like this game, you can download it off the newsgroups if you want to just get an idea for building up your armies with the three races:

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Starcraft.2 Beta.PLUS.LazyLaunch.PLUS.MAP.PLUS.AI.MAP - TorrentLeech
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IN THIS PACK YOU HAVE THE STARCRAFT 2 BETA,THE LAZYLAUNCH,A MAP THAT IS IN THE LAZYLAUNCH TXT INFO, AND A MAP THAT HAS AI!!! (AITest.s2ma)
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THIS IS AN OFFLINE SANDBOX PLAYABLE VERSION. YOU CAN USE ALL 3 RACES TO SEE HOW THE DIFFERENT UNITS LOOK AND BUILDINGS.
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THIS WORKS WITH THE CURRENT UPDATE/PATCH OF STARCRAFT 2 BETA.
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You can also go to: http://www.nibbits.com/sc2/maps/ for more maps as well.
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This crack will allow sandbox player, completely alone.
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What you can't do:
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You can't play against other players.
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What you can do:
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Build up your units, move around, play as if you loaded up a map by yourself.
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All the credit for the crack goes out to Teknogods and their SC2 crack team 'LazyTown'.
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From the AV_NOTICE.txt packed with the file:
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The launcher has been VMProtected to prevent Blizzard from easily patching this, and may throw a false positive for some antivirus and malware scanners.
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This file is 100% CLEAN.
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--LazyTown
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Install SC2 beta.
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Update SC2 beta (via blizzard, can do this without login)
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Run loader (FROM ANY LOCATION)
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Choose map (FROM ANY LOCATION)
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Enjoy SC2 sandbox style. You can edit your settings and all that business once you start it up, just choose resume game.
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Have fun

[Kwonryu DragonFist]

I have been playing with the latest AI called SC 6.0.

So far it's easy to exploit the AI, but if you don't know how, the AI can be quite good.

For example, if you want to win, play the Desert Oasis 1v1 map.

Seems like the 6.0 AI is better with Zerg than Protoss.

It's not quite like facing human opponents, but the AI has several different openings/build-orders and rushes.

[Dregor Thule]

Can anyone playing this tell me if it's possible to log into WoW and SC2 Beta at the same time if it's the same b.net account?

[Fairweather Pure]

If you ordered your copy from Amazon, you get a free beta key. I called today since I ordered my Collector's Edition on the 9th and haven't gotten my key yet and was told it's a known issue and I should get my key later today or tomorrow. The main reason I want in is so that I can see how it runs on my system!

[Animalor]

I got my pre-order from Best Buy online last nght and got to try it out.

It's Starcraft... Really more of the same Starcraft that everyone knows and loves. Frankly with the legion of talented Starcraft players out there, venturing online just to get the shit kicked out of me isn't a very pleasant prospect.

It's too bad they don't have co-op vs AI in the beta.

[Fairweather Pure]

DLing the game now. 1.64G in case anyone was curious.

I'll install and try it out when I get home from work tonight.

[Fairweather Pure]

Pros: It runs pretty goddamn great on my 5 year old system. It looks and sounds nice. They've added some interesting meta buildings that should add some variety. The save games hold a plethora of information to be watched and dissected. Very cool stuff. I like how it's all integrated.

Cons: The game itself is a sloooooow burn. Teching up seems to take an eternity. I'm a big fan of the RTS games and I really think the genre has advanced a great deal since Starcraft was on the scene. I guess I didn't really know how greatly it has advanced until I played SC2, which seems to have emerged from some sort of RTS limbo. That's not a bad thing at all, but it's certianly something worth taking into consideration. It took my opponent and I about 20-25 minutes before we were engaging in combat. That's pretty much unheard of in modern RTS games.

It reminds me a great deal of Command and Conquer: Tiberum Wars simply because it's kind of a kick back to simpler RTS game mechanincs. That's cool and all, but it does feel like I've played this game before. I really, really wish I could fight against the AI. Overall, I look forward to the single player campaign and map editor more than anything else. The Beta didn't change that.

[Fairweather Pure]

My name is Fairweather if anyone wants to add me to a friends list or anything. Not sure how any of that works just yet.

[Boogahz]

What have they done to actually make this a sequel? Everything from the first announcement has looked almost exactly like Starcraft 1. That is not a good thing.

[Dregor Thule]

What have they done to actually make this a sequel? Everything from the first announcement has looked almost exactly like Starcraft 1. That is not a good thing.

I haven't tried the Beta out yet myself, am happy to wait till it's released, but my brother has been playing it pretty heavily and says that it plays VERY differently from the first. He was completely lost when he tried to play the zerg There's definitely a lot of familiar things to it, such as a lot of the units, but from what he says the similarities end there.

[Animalor]

Pros: It runs pretty goddamn great on my 5 year old system. It looks and sounds nice. They've added some interesting meta buildings that should add some variety. The save games hold a plethora of information to be watched and dissected. Very cool stuff. I like how it's all integrated.

Cons: The game itself is a sloooooow burn. Teching up seems to take an eternity. I'm a big fan of the RTS games and I really think the genre has advanced a great deal since Starcraft was on the scene. I guess I didn't really know how greatly it has advanced until I played SC2, which seems to have emerged from some sort of RTS limbo. That's not a bad thing at all, but it's certianly something worth taking into consideration. It took my opponent and I about 20-25 minutes before we were engaging in combat. That's pretty much unheard of in modern RTS games.

It reminds me a great deal of Command and Conquer: Tiberum Wars simply because it's kind of a kick back to simpler RTS game mechanincs. That's cool and all, but it does feel like I've played this game before. I really, really wish I could fight against the AI. Overall, I look forward to the single player campaign and map editor more than anything else. The Beta didn't change that.

Create a game, choose a map, disable public mode and add AI players.

Not sure if you can do people vs AI or what though.

I have Anirask on bnet.

[Canelek]

So it has taken them around 14 years to re-create essentially the same game?

Nice.

[Dregor Thule]

On the other hand it took you about 14 seconds to jump to a conclusion

[Dregor Thule]

Cons: The game itself is a sloooooow burn. Teching up seems to take an eternity. I'm a big fan of the RTS games and I really think the genre has advanced a great deal since Starcraft was on the scene. I guess I didn't really know how greatly it has advanced until I played SC2, which seems to have emerged from some sort of RTS limbo. That's not a bad thing at all, but it's certianly something worth taking into consideration. It took my opponent and I about 20-25 minutes before we were engaging in combat. That's pretty much unheard of in modern RTS games.

I imagine you're not harvesting resources efficiently. You can place 3 SCVs/whathaveyou on each crystal, which is different from how the original worked it. That can greatly speed things up if you're doing that right.

[Canelek]

On the other hand it took you about 14 seconds to jump to a conclusion

It is my right as a USAdian.

[Fairweather Pure]

How long does it take to upgrade marine armor? How about weapons? How about ship armor? These are the things that I'm referring to. It's all designed to slow the pace of the game, perhaps giving the mid-game a longer stretch (I have no idea). I'm playing the newbie levels online, so rushing is basically prevented right now, but I know you can actually engage and get the action going, much, much sooner if you wish on other maps.

It is essentially the same game as the orignal. Sure, you have units that are unique to this game, so you have plenty of "rock, scissors, paper" to figure out, and you now have units that can travel between levels that will also add a new flavor to the mix. However, it's a lot more like SC1 than it is different. You harvest minerals and vespian gas. You build a base. You tech up and attack or can turtle and defend. Basic units for all sides still do pretty much the same things as the original and are used for the same purposes.

I'm pretty amazed it took them so long to make this game considering how little is really different. I'm guessing that updating B.net and integrating everything so tightly is what took the majority of the time. I still find it odd though.

Starcraft has always been a really fun game. I don't mean to take anything away from it, but it's a little too familiar and that is both a blessing and a curse. Coming from Dawn of War 1, 2 and Company of Heros, SC2 seems very comfortable not advancing the genre in terms of gameplay. I know Blizzard has tournament play in mind when creating this game, so perhaps it's best not to try anything crazy and just improve upon what they've done so well in the past. If that was their goal, it looks like they've succeeded based on what I've seen.