Starcraft II has been released!

[Overmind One]

The long awaited Starcraft II was released 8-27-2010. It replaces the hugely popular Beta which is great in itself. But the complete game has the map editor, campaigns (only the Terran) and multiplayer. It runs especially well on 64-bit systems, but will play well on Windows XP SP3. I have been playing it for several months and its AWESOME! The game goes for about $60, and can be downloaded as a digital product here:

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/

[video=google;-3980165796053569246]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3980165796053569246#docid=4748947369886393812

 

[Overmind One]

Meh....the Beta was more flexible.

The new Starcraft II game is very cool, and it has the campaigns like the first one, but it FORCES you to log into Battle.net to play, and there are no more LAN parties available without an internet connection. . This game was famous for LAN parties where a home network could connect the computers by IP address and players could have wars without using the internet. Blizzard has blocked this functionality...its not a technical obstacle, its a marketing one. I HATE THAT! Hackers are already working on an unlock hack. But overall, the game is GREAT.

No difference between the Beta and the full game as far as AI play. But the Starlauncher allows team selection and sharing of resources and allows playing of your own maps or downloaded maps from non-Blizzard sources. But still no LAN. :jack_new04:

 

[Deity59]

The new Starcraft II game is very cool, and it has the campaigns like the first one, but it FORCES you to log into Battle.net to play, and there are no more LAN parties available without an internet connection. . This game was famous for LAN parties where a home network could connect the computers by IP address and players could have wars without using the internet. Blizzard has blocked this functionality...its not a technical obstacle, its a marketing one. I HATE THAT! Hackers are already working on an unlock hack. But overall, the game is GREAT.

No difference between the Beta and the full game as far as AI play. But the Starlauncher allows team selection and sharing of resources and allows playing of your own maps or downloaded maps from non-Blizzard sources. But still no LAN. :jack_new04:

Even to play single player you have to log in? If so that is total bullshit. I like stardock's philosophy, "we don't assume our customers are thieves". If you like real time strategy check out Sins of a Solar Empire or for turn based Galactic Civilizations II. They are also making a remake of the old classic Master of Magic, if any of you old timers remember that one.

 

[Imperial Guardsman]

Even to play single player you have to log in? If so that is total bullshit. I like stardock's philosophy, "we don't assume our customers are thieves". If you like real time strategy check out Sins of a Solar Empire or for turn based Galactic Civilizations II. They are also making a remake of the old classic Master of Magic, if any of you old timers remember that one.

My understanding is that the game can be played offline without achievements but internet is required for installation and initial game registration.

 

[Overmind One]

Yeah, that is called Guest Mode

My understanding is that the game can be played offline without achievements but internet is required for installation and initial game registration.

You can play single player against AI in guest mode, but no LAN on your network without logging in. And the only reason is because Blizzard BLOCKED it! I can do that with the Beta as well, but what about when friends want to have a battle on your home network? Those LAN parties cant happen now.

 

[Aragon101]

And that's when i knew...

You can play single player against AI in guest mode, but no LAN on your network without logging in. And the only reason is because Blizzard BLOCKED it! I can do that with the Beta as well, but what about when friends want to have a battle on your home network? Those LAN parties cant happen now.

... that OM-1 was a true geek

I recall doing that back in the day when i was hard into CS and BF1942 LOL Man that really took me back

 

[Overmind One]

I will miss those LAN parties! Blizzard knows that grownup men still play video games!

Yes, as a part of of Elite geek Life style (Part rolling eyes, part blushing, part proud) I used to host everything from LAN Parties for StarCraft and WarCraft, and DOOM Deathmatches since waay back. Started playing SCII Since Last Friday, got even the Rig updated (Win7 on I7, 4gb RAM and ATI 4500 series with 512Mb RAM) but to my ire, the game crashes quite often. And even on single user mode, one has to log into battlenet. WTF?? Hate when that happens. since Now I can't burn my Son's Base down before he can say "Vespeen Gas"

Some Missions can be be outright frustrating, if you haven't RTS gaming for a while. I've played everything from C&C, Starcraft, Warcraft, expansion packs and what not.. hopefully, they'll fix the Hang/crash and sometimes re-boot. It's hard not to curse out loud when you band of marauders are about to wipe out a Protoss base, and the game exits to desktop..

The fix for that is to set your graphic to LOW (looks flat to me), OR, to upgrade your video card to 512 or better. This is my system rating:



According to your specs, your system is more powerful than mine! But then again, I am running Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit. I havent crashed once. Consider going to an Nvidia card.

I have the graphics set to Medium, and cinematics set to high so I can watch all the cool death animations like Zergs getting fried, and the cool building explosions. Pieces of the buildings actually blow apart and fall on the ground, blood spurts...cool! :mrgreen:. You can also increase your virtual memory. Remember, graphics cards sometimes share video memory with the computer and this can cause crashes. Nvidia cards mostly use onboard memory for video and it makes for a much more stable setup.

The new campaigns piss me off! They seem impossible. So, after getting REALLY pissed off, I will set a game with 4 opponents against just me, and then use the "no resource costs" cheat (moredotsmoredots) and build like 6 barracks and 6 starports and an entire perimeter of air towers (Terran). I will make all of my opponents Zerg or Protoss, and wait for them to start attacking. Even with a fleet of battlecruisers, Zerg corrupters can take them out easily if there are enough of them.

Lan parties were COOL! You could have guys with laptops hard wired into a 16-port switch, or even a wireless LAN connection. Warcraft got me for a while but then it became a bit too much for me. When the Beta came out I was playing that while waiting for this game to come out. I LOVE THE GAME. I just dont like how Blizzard is suddenly trying to play cop with it.

... that OM-1 was a true geek

I recall doing that back in the day when i was hard into CS and BF1942 LOL Man that really took me back

Im not sure what CS is, but I sure as hell played BF1942 (Medal of Honor) a lot on LAN! My preference was Delta Force Land Warrior and Backhawk Down over a VPN with my best friend, and NovaWorld wasnt needed. Now, you have to use NovaWorld to play Delta Force Xtreme, just like Blizzard is doing with SC2.

As far as being a true geek...GUILTY AS CHARGED!

 

[Deity59]

The fix for that is to set your graphic to LOW (looks flat to me), OR, to upgrade your video card to 512 or better. This is my system rating:

View attachment 626

According to your specs, your system is more powerful than mine! But then again, I am running Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit. I havent crashed once. Consider going to an Nvidia card.

I have the graphics set to Medium, and cinematics set to high so I can watch all the cool death animations like Zergs getting fried, and the cool building explosions. Pieces of the buildings actually blow apart and fall on the ground, blood spurts...cool! :mrgreen:. You can also increase your virtual memory. Remember, graphics cards sometimes share video memory with the computer and this can cause crashes. Nvidia cards mostly use onboard memory for video and it makes for a much more stable setup.

The new campaigns piss me off! They seem impossible. So, after getting REALLY pissed off, I will set a game with 4 opponents against just me, and then use the "no resource costs" cheat (moredotsmoredots) and build like 6 barracks and 6 starports and an entire perimeter of air towers (Terran). I will make all of my opponents Zerg or Protoss, and wait for them to start attacking. Even with a fleet of battlecruisers, Zerg corrupters can take them out easily if there are enough of them.

Lan parties were COOL! You could have guys with laptops hard wired into a 16-port switch, or even a wireless LAN connection. Warcraft got me for a while but then it became a bit too much for me. When the Beta came out I was playing that while waiting for this game to come out. I LOVE THE GAME. I just dont like how Blizzard is suddenly trying to play cop with it.



Im not sure what CS is, but I sure as hell played BF1942 (Medal of Honor) a lot on LAN! My preference was Delta Force Land Warrior and Backhawk Down over a VPN with my best friend, and NovaWorld wasnt needed. Now, you have to use NovaWorld to play Delta Force Xtreme, just like Blizzard is doing with SC2.

As far as being a true geek...GUILTY AS CHARGED!

I'm assuming CS is counter strike.

It's his video card, the 4500 series is on the low side. 600MHz, 80 stream processors, 64 bit memory path to DDR2. I'm surprised he can play it at all.

My first "LAN party" we hooked 2 computers together with a null modem cable. Those were the days. I remember one time we had so many people we blew a 20 amp breaker. Embarrassing, considering almost everyone in the room was an electrical engineer and should have known better (me included).

 

[Aragon101]

CS is indeed CounterStrike. I was nigh unstoppable with a Steyr Scout and P229.

BF1942 is not Medal of Honor It was much funner as the maps and battles were oh so much more epic in scale and just sheer grandioseness. None of this one soldier above all, it was pure and simple spawn/respawn and all teh classes were balanced. Tanks, Jeeps, Planes, Aircraft Carriers.. all controllable There's not much more satisfaction than using an Aircraft Carrier to ram an enemy destroyer that's spawning soldiers

The mods were the biggest thing though., Desert Combat was my game and i'd play for hours on end after school with the Apache or Littlebird. I was one of the few who could actually handle those choppers and i even merced out for some clans Made some decent skrilla playing games

After that, i pretty much disengaged from online gaming. Now it's all about the RPGs and RTSs and single player Although my bro upgraded the comp to play Crysis at maximum

IIRC, i have 6 gigs of mem, 2.something CPU duel core, ATI 4870HD x2 Graphics,... am i missing something? still on 32bit Windows 7 but that's to change to 64 bit soon

i cannot wait for Fallout Vegas and the eventual release of Mass Effect 3

 

[Deity59]

CS is indeed CounterStrike. I was nigh unstoppable with a Steyr Scout and P229.

BF1942 is not Medal of Honor It was much funner as the maps and battles were oh so much more epic in scale and just sheer grandioseness. None of this one soldier above all, it was pure and simple spawn/respawn and all teh classes were balanced. Tanks, Jeeps, Planes, Aircraft Carriers.. all controllable There's not much more satisfaction than using an Aircraft Carrier to ram an enemy destroyer that's spawning soldiers

The mods were the biggest thing though., Desert Combat was my game and i'd play for hours on end after school with the Apache or Littlebird. I was one of the few who could actually handle those choppers and i even merced out for some clans Made some decent skrilla playing games

After that, i pretty much disengaged from online gaming. Now it's all about the RPGs and RTSs and single player Although my bro upgraded the comp to play Crysis at maximum

IIRC, i have 6 gigs of mem, 2.something CPU duel core, ATI 4870HD x2 Graphics,... am i missing something? still on 32bit Windows 7 but that's to change to 64 bit soon

i cannot wait for Fallout Vegas and the eventual release of Mass Effect 3

Nope, CPU could be a tad weak if it is older and in the low 2's, specially if it is an AMD CPU. Also DX11 is out now and the 4000 series cards are DX10, if that matters to you. Because a lot of game houses write for PC and consoles the consoles are holding the games back. You should be good for a while yet.

 

[Overmind One]

Should I get it?

CS is indeed CounterStrike. I was nigh unstoppable with a Steyr Scout and P229.

BF1942 is not Medal of Honor It was much funner as the maps and battles were oh so much more epic in scale and just sheer grandioseness. None of this one soldier above all, it was pure and simple spawn/respawn and all teh classes were balanced. Tanks, Jeeps, Planes, Aircraft Carriers.. all controllable There's not much more satisfaction than using an Aircraft Carrier to ram an enemy destroyer that's spawning soldiers

The mods were the biggest thing though., Desert Combat was my game and i'd play for hours on end after school with the Apache or Littlebird. I was one of the few who could actually handle those choppers and i even merced out for some clans Made some decent skrilla playing games

After that, i pretty much disengaged from online gaming. Now it's all about the RPGs and RTSs and single player Although my bro upgraded the comp to play Crysis at maximum

IIRC, i have 6 gigs of mem, 2.something CPU duel core, ATI 4870HD x2 Graphics,... am i missing something? still on 32bit Windows 7 but that's to change to 64 bit soon

i cannot wait for Fallout Vegas and the eventual release of Mass Effect 3

Medal of Honor was fun on LAN! So its Battlefield 1942...worth getting? I have never played it.

 

[Overmind One]

A quick armageddon for my enemies!

I never recorded a FRAPS video and converted with Freeware Video Converter before. Here is a quickie destruction of my 'toss enemies. I was using cheats, so I have an armada of battleships and unlimited energy to fire Yamato cannons. Its really fun to do that after losing campaigns repeatedly!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdMMk3xyQ30

 

[Deity59]

I swear to God they are still using sounds from x-com.

Oh, and btw..................CHEATER!!! :sam01:

 

[Overmind One]

Those cheater sessions can sometimes be brutal!

I swear to God they are still using sounds from x-com.

Oh, and btw..................CHEATER!!! :sam01:

You know, its very satisfying to be able to just build whatever you want without having to mine crystals, but you still have to build supply depots, and protect structures. Even with unlimited crystals, you need vespene to repair stuff. This new Starcraft has an "auto-cast" feature for SCVs and Protoss carriers which makes them auto repair nearby units, regenerate drone ships for the carriers, etc. But if you do a Co-op vs AI with 3 opponents against you and on the same team, you still can only win about half the time even using the cheats!

I purposely pick maps which have islands, because I can lift off my Terran command center and put it on the island, then build a barracks, fly it to the island, then the factory, and then I can build the starport and build a medivac to fly the SCVs to the island. Then, its impossible for them to rush me with Zerglings, Marines or 'Toss soldiers. By the time they have air power, I have built an entire perimeter of air towers that shoot down drones and attack their air fighters. But I can still lose! One dump of a troop carrier full of Marauders, or a dropped Thor into that island base and Im toast. :icon_eek:

 

[Aragon101]

personally i never relied on defensive structures. This is from SC1 btw, but spamming marines and Goliaths just to start always kept the majority of rushes back.

I'll likely get SC2 in a few weeks, i'm still a C&C fan before SC though

 

[Deity59]

I will try a hardware change this weekend (Mainly because my LG HD+Blu-Ray drive is being retarded and refusing to play my Planet Earth + Life Disks. I Purchased an ATI 4650 1Gb card and the LG BH10LS30 Bru-Ray Writer. Hopefully the Cyberlink (Fucked-up) software (I paid for 7, 8 and 9, but stole 10) would now play my Movies and stop bitching that "incorrect type of disk" is in the Drive. I hardly used the old one. I bought it beause it could read & Write both HD and Blu-Ray. I nornally use my son's PS3 to watch movies.

Hopefully, the freezing and crashing of SC2 would stop as well. Did I mention the Nice young woman at EBGames gave me a limited Ed. SC2 Mouse Pad? (I swear they probably have me and my son as sales figures in their books) .

Is the monitor you are hooking it to HDCP compliant? If not that may be why you can't play the disks. The 4650 is better, but is there a reason you keep picking low end cards? I am assuming it's not money since you are buying bluray writers. Do you not have the power supply to run a better vid card?

 

[Deity59]

Lol, it's one of those situations.. Yes the monitors were... Well, best money could buy. They are NEC LCD2080UX . They are infact the ones used on Stargate Command, and cost just over US$1K/Monitor (Purchased it for a consulting Project/ Proof of Concept, Medical Imaging -MRI/CAT/PET/X-RAY). They are a bit old now, but still capable of 1600 x 1200. They are certified to run Blu-ray in High definition. They are the two screens on the left.
View attachment 647
The white rig was replaced with an Off-the-shelf Dell Vostro 430. I swap out these machines (I have an I7, Daughter & Son have I5's) every couple of years. I can't pump Juice into a High End card with a 350-450 Watt PS, plus all the other crap I throw in there. That's why I kinda get stuck with the "iffy" cards. I can't be bothered anymore building my own rigs, as the the types of games I like to play don't come out that often, Plus I am finding less and less time to play the games I like to play.

If I had my Way, I'd buy a board that would run Dual SLI and Crossfire type Technology, but then Since I don't play Flight SIMS, why spend the time and energy?

Is Dell still using proprietary power supplies? If not just buy a new one. I just had to get a new one, corsair 650 watt cost me $64 shipped(well $84 with the inevitable $20 MIR). Then get something like a Nvidia GTX 460 1 GB for $230 and not have to upgrade for years. The way you are doing it you will have to keep buying a $50 video card every year.

P.S. You can build a whole PC in about an hour, from parts to working OS.

 

[Overmind One]

I build all my machines

Is Dell still using proprietary power supplies? If not just buy a new one. I just had to get a new one, corsair 650 watt cost me $64 shipped(well $84 with the inevitable $20 MIR). Then get something like a Nvidia GTX 460 1 GB for $230 and not have to upgrade for years. The way you are doing it you will have to keep buying a $50 video card every year.

P.S. You can build a whole PC in about an hour, from parts to working OS.

I build all my machines, since its WAY cheaper to build a monster of a machine with really good hardware rather than to buy an overpriced pre-built/branded one with less power from HP or Dell. I have an Nvidia 9500GT 1gb, but that GTX 460 is looking good!

 

[Aragon101]

Ah yes, Red Alert 3, with the paratrooping warbears

Personally i liked my wargames a little more serious, so Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath are my tastes but Red Alert 2 was badass and Kari Wurher is totally one of the hottest woman ever.

Will be getting SC2 net week i believe. I'm applying for work just about everywhere and with any luck i can get rid of this charity gig (door to door getting donations, eugh, even I hate myself for being so 'conscientious')

Just checked out my own comp specs, (actually dismantled for practice since i'm taking my A+ soon) and i've got....

Core 2 Duo 3.0ghz
6 gigs of DDR-3
ATi-4870X2 (it's dreamy )
and a 750w PS.

Here's a video of my playing Crysis at maximum i took for a friend. I'm amazed i was able to get that half decent framerate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGtnBwYAqnQ

 

[Overmind One]

I gotta have that game!

Ah yes, Red Alert 3, with the paratrooping warbears

Personally i liked my wargames a little more serious, so Tiberium Wars and Kane's Wrath are my tastes but Red Alert 2 was badass and Kari Wurher is totally one of the hottest woman ever.

Will be getting SC2 net week i believe. I'm applying for work just about everywhere and with any luck i can get rid of this charity gig (door to door getting donations, eugh, even I hate myself for being so 'conscientious')

Just checked out my own comp specs, (actually dismantled for practice since i'm taking my A+ soon) and i've got....

Core 2 Duo 3.0ghz
6 gigs of DDR-3
ATi-4870X2 (it's dreamy )
and a 750w PS.

Here's a video of my playing Crysis at maximum i took for a friend. I'm amazed i was able to get that half decent framerate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGtnBwYAqnQ

Tiberium wars was excellant. Kanes Wrath you say? never seen that one so will run to the shops and have a look for it today. I also thought hat C+C Generals was shite.

It looks like Delta Force, only much better! I am going to get that game for sure. Does it have good single player campaigns?