Starcraft 2

[Karimi]

Then SC2 starts and he's just staring at photos drawings of her and everyone one is alluding to some relationship beyond friendship that they never really had. When Zeratul shows up and

tells Jim that he shouldn't kill Kerrigan

it doesn't make any sense, because the character is clearly fawning over her at every chance he gets. He shows all the guilt and regret for being involved in Kerrigan's creation, but none of the anger over the things she did of her own volition.

I understand why most of the Brood War stuff isn't really referenced, because that game had a bad plot, mostly due to Kerrigan godmoding, but I think that aspect would make Jimmy more interesting.

Right, while I think Brood War was much weaker than SC1, it definitely had some great moments. Just to help you out, heres Jim's quote : "It may not be tomorow, darlin', it may not even happen with an army at my back. But rest assured; I'm the man who's gonna kill you one day. I'll be seeing you." While a lot can happen in four years, I think it would have served Blizzard well to show how Jim Raynor had changed in those four years and what could have turned him from "You're dead to me , bitch" to "God, I want her so bad dude." I'm not saying its not possible, it would just be better writing to have a character evolve, and their motives develop rather than create a sort of archetypal character and have the reader fill the gaps in between. For example, if the transition occured after

meeting Zeratul, I might have bought it. "Kerrigan ? Im killin her" "She can be saved FRIEND RAY-NOR" "Oh.Hmm." 10 bucks says Heart of the Swarm will include Infested Tychus."

[Nappi]

Just finished the single player campaign. Most of my thoughts have already been voiced here: The story was useless, the characters mostly uninteresting, gorgeous pre-rendered cutscenes were scarce, the missions were nice and varied, new units were introduced cleverly, and the final mission was really underwhelming.

I started to enjoy the game more and more as I learned how it should really be played: with a shitload of SCVs. I hate timed missions and unfortunately there were a lot of those in this game. Fortunately however, I was able dominate them quite easily.

Curiously enough, the bonus objectives stressed me the most about this game. In the capture the flag gas mission, for instance, I captured six of the seven sites with relative ease but couldn't capture the last one because I had to find the three artifacts first. I took (and always take) completing bonus objectives way too seriously, especially if there is some kind of permanent reward, such as upgrade points, involved. I know this and I can't help it.

I'm interested to see what Blizzard will do with the next chapter. If it's going to be more or less the same missions but with the zerg, I'm probably going to pass, as I dislike the zerg, don't care for the epic storyline and have played enough of these "traditional" RTS games already. I really hope they can come up with some crazy twist for Heart of the Swarm to make me play it.

Oh, and I'm not interested in the multiplayer, at all.

[elmuerte]

I haven't completed it yet; but that's pretty much how I feel about the game.

the last few missions I played were quite easy (where you can control the odin, and the secret mission)

[Forbin]

Reminder that there's a thread in the multiplayer forum.

Put your player info in this shared doc: Thumbs.db

A few North American's are getting together on Wednesday nights for Thumb v Thumb, matches. Where players play 1v1 while others spectate rotating in. Takes a bit of the stress off watching others play and seeing their mistakes.

[Irishjohn]

Just finished the single player campaign. Most of my thoughts have already been voiced here: The story was useless, the characters mostly uninteresting, gorgeous pre-rendered cutscenes were scarce, the missions were nice and varied, new units were introduced cleverly, and the final mission was really underwhelming.

This thread is a good example of Blizzard self-delusion:

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/628254665

I must say I enjoyed the story for a while but the characters weren't even strong enough to keep it going in a "so bad it's good" way. Tosh is the most annoying character I've encountered in a while. A black guy, with dreadlocks!!! Seriously? Is that some kind of a fucking joke?

I did like the pre-rendered cutscenes very much, and I wish there had been more of them.

[Nachimir]

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/628254665

Their site just automatically turned

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/628254665

into:

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/buynow?ref=/sc2/en/forum/topic/628254665

Whoever wrote that first post, he seems more like marketing than community management.

[Irishjohn]

Their site just automatically turned

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/forum/topic/628254665

into:

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/buynow?ref=/sc2/en/forum/topic/628254665

Whoever wrote that first post, he seems more like marketing than community management.

Every time you visit that site it throws up an ad for the game.

You're probably right, but if so then they're letting marketing guys write a lot of posts like that. Either way, Blizzard are completely in love with their own "lore."

[Patters]

The difficulty level in this game is like a sine wave. I'm playing on normal, which for the most part is too easy, though there are missions which are much more challenging, then others that are so incredibly easy (the laser mission). A difficulty level between hard and normal would be ideal.

[elmuerte]

Goddamn that last mission is a bitch. I finished most missions on normal without too much problem, a few were more difficult. But this last mission, I failed it 4 times already (and restarted from scratch once). Last try I barely reached 70% (I think), failed 1 second before I could use the artifact. I really think Blizzard fucked up play testing the single player campaign, otherwise they would have noticed that the difficulty of missions is a complete mess. Also, the pathfinding is really retarded. Units get stuck behind other units, SCVs lock themselves in while building. And wtf don't units use their special abilities during fights? And why can't they combine their powers to attach heavy units. Any do medics want to run in front of everybody, and thereby getting killed? Haven't they learned anything about creating RTS games in the past 10+ years?

[Nappi]

Which mission did you choose before that one? I got

rid of the air units

and the final mission was almost too easy after that. I haven't tried playing the other version of the mission but I'd imagine it could be a lot harder.

[Brannigan]

Which mission did you choose before that one? I got

rid of the air units

and the final mission was almost too easy after that. I haven't tried playing the other version of the mission but I'd imagine it could be a lot harder.

even if it makes the last one easier, the nydus worm mission is infinitely more fun than the air units version.

[elmuerte]

Which mission did you choose before that one? I got

rid of the air units

and the final mission was almost too easy after that. I haven't tried playing the other version of the mission but I'd imagine it could be a lot harder.

I did the same mission.... ok, so what am I doing wrong then? I can't click fast enough around the map to build new units and position them.

[Nappi]

Have a lot of SCVs collecting the mineral and the other thing, barricade the two entrances with bunkers (and man them, and have some SCVs ready to fix or rebuild them), build tanks and put them in siege mode somewhere where they are safe (behind the bunkers and on the hill for instance), get some heavy units like thors and battlecruisers to defend both entrances, apply weapon and armor upgrades when you have spare cash (which you should have most of the time) and destroy the worms with battlecruisers as fast as possible because they vomit out zerg constantly (I think the artifact blast kills at least some of the worms too). I didn't use infantry much in this missions apart from the ones that were on the bunkers but focused more on battlecruisers and thors.

I don't know if that is the best tactic but that's how I beat the mission. The only time I had to micro was with the worms.

Not sure if you already know this, but you can assign a hotkey to your structures just like your units, so you can add more units to the queue just by pressing, say, '5' and selecting the units. Just constantly build units until you max out and move them to protect one of the entrances when you have time.

I agree that the difficulty level in Starcraft II is weird and inconsistent. I find it really interesting, however, that there is no single mission everyone is struggling with but that one man's easy is other man's insane. Some of the missions I have had troubles with are described by others as being ridiculously easy and the other way around.

[Forbin]

First time I played that mission I failed, then my friend told me I was an idiot for not killing the nydus worms when they spawn. I reloaded the last auto-save point and sent my forces out to take care of the 15+ nydus worms constantly spewing forces at me, and I still beat it no problem. I imagine if you stay on top of them with battlecruisers from the start of the map it'd be an even bigger cake-walk.

[elmuerte]

hmm.. I think I need to use some air unit to hunt for the worms and sort of disregard the base defense (i.e. leave the standard bunker/tanks/etc there without control).

I didn't try to kill the worms that were way off site.

[CaptainFish]

In my opinion banshees are much better for taking out the nydus worms than battlecruisers. They're much faster, can cloak, and can be quickly replaced.

[Karimi]

There's video guides for the mission on youtube but essentially what you need to do for the nydus final mission is bunker up and block your entry points, build 2x factories with constant siege tank production and have them defend. Have 2x starports just building banshees, you'll want around 10 at any given time.When the nydus works pop up just cloak and ctrl right click each one (basically queing them up) so you can do other stuff. If you've done it right you've got a control group (hotkeyed) banshees, factories and starports with a couple of banshees at all times and around 30 tanks in your base. Around halfway a bunch of overlords come from the back and drop a bunch of units in your base, so be ready for that and have your banshees either clean up or send some units. Focus down kerrigan with banshees when shes near your base and be ready to replace the ones you've lost.

[Grufff]

I failed the last mission on my first attempt as I'd not built up enough defenses on the entrances to my base and I just got overwhelmed. Second attempt I basically did what Karimi has said and it was pretty easy.

[Irishjohn]

So, was I in the minority for having to face air-centric stuff in my last mission? It was fun, I basically had to produce marines, goliaths, vikings and missile turrets like my life depended on it.

[Patters]

I did the worm mission prior to the final mission. The final mission was not hard, for me at least. My strategy was to build a barracks on top of the hill you defend pumping out marines and medics constantly (2 marines for each medic), pumping out Battleships to the back of the hill, from here I made sure I had 2 battleships at each entrance, putting the others at the front of the hill. I only built 2 SCVs which were constantly building turrets to prevent aerial assaults as well as repairing. A few Goliaths are useful to cover additional fliers and a couple of siege tanks don't hurt. Once I hit the unit cap, I never dropped below 150.

At the end I probably had 12 Battleships, 5 Banshees, 50 infantry and a couple of Thors.

[elmuerte]

Yeah, ok. So actually hunting for the worms made a enormous difference. I also decided to upgrade armor and weapons of the vehicles and planes. This time I barely lost units at all. So, I came quite far without actually killing worms that were not within siege tank range (I checked, I was just over 70%). Those worms were never this annoying in the missions before that.

So, yay.. I finished Starcraft 2 on normal (every mission, even the alternates).

Timed missions sort of sucked every time, specially the first Odin mission was annoying.

The normal skirmish missions had the same flaws as RTS games back in 1995. Create a proper defense, take out enemy bases part by part, in the mean while build an army so large than you cannot fit every unit within a single screen, waltz through the rest of the map without blinking.

The commando missions were all fun. The secret mission and the last prothos missions were the most intense (if you exclude my wrong try on the final mission).

The ending of the game doesn't make sense at all.

So, Karrigan(?) is back to human form. How does this stop the hybrids? Se might was well be dead. Or are the hybrids under her hivemind control (sort of) and when killing her the control would be broken, and converting her back to human would lock them in permanently. Also, what ever happened to the zerg infestation cure by the docter?

Also, the most likable person in this whole game was Tygus, or at least, the only one with an actual personality.

[Grufff]

So, Karrigan(?) is back to human form. How does this stop the hybrids? Se might was well be dead. Or are the hybrids under her hivemind control (sort of) and when killing her the control would be broken, and converting her back to human would lock them in permanently. Also, what ever happened to the zerg infestation cure by the docter?

.

Kerrigan is nothing to do with the hybrids as far as I'm aware. The hybrids are the creation of the Xel'naga and will appear properly in 'the future' i.e. the next part of the game I assume.

The next chapter focuses on the Zerg so it'll show the post-Kerrigan fallout and possibly the creation of the hybrids? Does the Overmind return from the grave?

Maybe Kerrigan is now a Human/Zerg hybrid so can counter the Protoss/Zerg hybrid somehow?

Hopefully someone knows more about all this than me as I'm ill-informed and just guessing.

[elmuerte]

Kerrigan is nothing to do with the hybrids as far as I'm aware. The hybrids are the creation of the Xel'naga and will appear properly in 'the future' i.e. the next part of the game I assume.

The next chapter focuses on the Zerg so it'll show the post-Kerrigan fallout and possibly the creation of the hybrids? Does the Overmind return from the grave?

Maybe Kerrigan is now a Human/Zerg hybrid so can counter the Protoss/Zerg hybrid somehow?

Hopefully someone knows more about all this than me as I'm ill-informed and just guessing.

the prothos side missions pretty much said

save the cheerleader; save the universe

[Forbin]

Yeah the story did pretty much imply that Kerrigan needed to be corrupted to stop the hybrids. However, it could also mean that she needed to have been corrupted, not necessarily stay infested. My guess is that in the Zerg campaign, they'll realize why she was needed, find out that Raynor fucked it up and try to increase her ability somehow. Most likely, you'll be flying around in the battlecruiser trying to help Kerrigan regain control of the swarm. The protoss will be pissed off, but will eventually agree to make a final stand against the hybrids as a united force of Terrans, Protoss and Zerg under Kerrigan.

[Grufff]

the prothos side missions pretty much said

save the cheerleader; save the universe

I've just re-read my post and it didn't make much sense sorry.

The way I understood things from the Protoss missions, I knew

Kerrigan needed to be kept alive to save everyone from the hybrids. The way they introduced the "turn her back Human" artifact, I just assumed 'kept alive' meant 'alive and not Zerg'. This is why Raynor saved her and conveniently was able to turn her back Human in the process.

They could be going down the route Forbin suggested though i.e.

Raynor's screwed things up by turning her Human and did it for love as they've introduced the whole Raynor/Kerrigan storyline that wasn't really there before

I guess we just wait and see though.