^^^^ Like BEU said, they are used for early scouting. Generally you want to keep a few of them spread out throughout the map so you can get early recon of the enemy units. Overlords do not detect stealth units, but they can be evolved into Overseers which can detect.

3/7/2010 10:48:54 AM

Quote :

"Do you have to own another blizzard game before you can sign up in the beta for this?"

I don't think you need to have any cd-keys registered to sign up for the opt-in beta, just need a battle.net account. If you remember the info for your old wow account you can link that in so that you have at least something in there.

3/7/2010 12:48:26 PM

Hooray, just got a beta key!

Too bad I'm (relatively) not any good at the game. And too bad I'm too busy to play much of anything. And too bad I just bought Bad Company 2 and borrowed Mass Effect 2 so I've got so much other stuff to play on top of that... though as problems go, "having too many games to play" is a pretty damn good one.

3/7/2010 3:16:36 PM

What the hell...where's my beta key?

3/7/2010 4:10:39 PM

Quote :

"I don't think you need to have any cd-keys registered to sign up for the opt-in beta, just need a battle.net account. If you remember the info for your old wow account you can link that in so that you have at least something in there."

Nope, can't remember it. oh well.

3/7/2010 7:35:13 PM

For any of the others that were accepted into the beta test -- Interested in teaming up to do some 2v2 at some point?

I've been playing 1v1s exclusively so I can get familiar with each of the races and some strategies for them -- would prefer to move to 2v2s with a team mate though. I don't care if you suck miserably, as I am still pretty bad myself. Just send me a message on here or reply in the thread.

3/8/2010 1:30:18 PM

Here is why I am a moron

I have had the beta invite for probably a 1.5 weeks and didnt know it.

Doesnt mean I will be able to play a lot though.

3/8/2010 8:06:58 PM

If you are unable, I would be glad to take it off your hands.

3/8/2010 9:21:41 PM

tdub SCII clan needs to start when this thing comes out

3/8/2010 9:42:25 PM

I'm really enjoying zerg right now. Burrowing at enemy's resource points is so much fun!

3/9/2010 8:36:01 PM

I haven't played any SCII in over a week now.

3/9/2010 8:46:42 PM

Played first multi-player game. Was surprised how slow I was even though I won. All I have been watching are the battle reports and other multi-player games and I realize how bad I am.

Would allowing AI skirmishes be that big a deal?

I would love to get back into the game without having to play people up front.

[Edited on March 9, 2010 at 9:17 PM. Reason : das]

3/9/2010 9:17:06 PM

^ There are cracked betas w/ only AIs. Although, blizz has only officially put in the "sandbox" AI to encourage human playing. The cracked versions are basically mods on the sandbox level. So, they're not much "smarter", they just tweaked the resource gathering rates to cheat. Therefore, you're probably better off just playing against other ppl for now. Also, Blizz said today, i think, that they're still planning on releasing more content for the beta in patches, including some stuff that'll adjust the matchmaking system.

3/9/2010 10:55:06 PM

^ Actually the AI is a lot better than blizzards. I agree that if you play the computer by being defensive and just building D at the start then it might seem easy. Play it as if you were playing against someone where you don't straight up D at the start. No good Starcraft player will do that or they will get out macroed and therefore out resourced. If you play the AI versions I mentioned below as you would against a human player you will improve your game skills. If you play straight up D like most chumps that can't play the game you will most likely win if you just stop their first attack but you will never beat a human player like that. There is a GUI launcher out as well that allows you to play 2v2 3v3 2v1 etc so you could try that to make it harder.

Search for Starcrack 6 or versions above it they should be a lot better than blizzards very easy AI.

3/10/2010 10:23:50 PM

^ That is the exact version I'm talking about. I was not impressed with the starcrack difficulty. I was expecting much harder. You can watch replays where the AI ends with 10000+ resources because it doesn't know to be spending it all. I'm expecting Blizzard's "Insane" level AI in the full game to be much harder.

3/10/2010 10:31:15 PM

OMG 2-0 in multiplayer

I AM SO TUFF.

But seriously, the AI is MUCh better, if you tell your units to attack a building, and the enemy attacks you with units, your units automatically switch to the danger.

But,

Where the hell is the awe factor compared to star craft 1?

Maybe it will be in this supposedly crazy long single player campaign, where the story gets fleshed out nicely.

Otherwise, this game doesn't do ANYTHING new. Maybe I am expecting to much.

[Edited on March 10, 2010 at 11:13 PM. Reason : f]

3/10/2010 11:13:26 PM

It's amazing the difference in "Low" and "Ultra" graphics settings I think. My POS could only handle Low, but I've seen screens where people compare the differences....it's pretty dramatic. As long as they've taken to make this game though, I wanna be able to experience it in maxed out settings!

3/11/2010 12:12:37 AM

@Sprocket

This is exactly what I warned the person about the AI. If your AI is getting to 10k+ minerals then you sir are playing them way too defensively hence making the AI very easy to beat. I will repeat myself again and say that if you want a challenge play like you would another person. You do not let another player amass that many minerals. Why exactly would anyone want to watch replays of things you know will happen if you just play D and build an army. I will agree that the AI is not the best overall but it mimics the quick expansion and attack tactics of any good starcraft player. One of the reasons I am betting you find this easy is because you just set up some D at your base and you upgrade your units. A known problem is that the AI does not upgrade their units and is bad against a lot of air units. Once again if you want the AI to actually be HARD DO NOT sit and DEFEND fully instead arm an attacking force as you would against good starcraft players where the first battle usually sways the momentum of the match. If you do that I can assure you that you won't be easily beating them consistently much less beating the Cheating AI version as its nearly impossible to go head to head with them at the start due to their increased resources.

[Edited on March 11, 2010 at 3:40 AM. Reason : ;]

3/11/2010 3:38:56 AM

^ I'm saying I thought the Starcrack AI would be a "big spender" regardless of its skill level. I saw some replays of short games were it still had an excess of minerals. I'm saying I think because the starcrack people built their modified AI ontop of the easy version, the AI WON'T spend big constantly, regardless of how aggressively you play. I've heard all they did was tweak the resource gather rate, but since blizz only did that for the insane level, you're still getting a slightly better AI that plays the game as if it wasn't receiving the extra minerals. I guess that's what I think is going on - maybe the AI doesn't "see" that its resource rate has been increased. Idk, but it kind of seemed that way.

You're kind of preaching to the choir about playing defensively. You're right about the shorter games in general though - I'd imagine it's hard to program an AI that can keep it's skill constant throughout early -> late game and not be impossible to beat or way to easy. I'm kind of sad with how early the AI calls "GG" too. I sort of wanted it to resist longer. Oh well...it's all we've got for now!

[Edited on March 11, 2010 at 8:11 AM. Reason : sp]

3/11/2010 8:05:24 AM

haha that "gg" startled me, i thought i was playing against people for a moment

so far I'm finding that top tier "factory" units for each race are OP as hell but I really suck at this game

3/11/2010 10:06:30 AM

I'm feeling oddly pessimistic about this game considering starcraft is one of my favorite games of all time, even the 3d engine has a 2d feel, from the videos I've seen there doesn't seem to be anything interesting about shadows, lighting, line of sight that some 3d games starting doing a couple years after the original starcraft came out

oh well, I'm sure I will still play the hell out of this game and that's what matters, I'm just not sure the review sites should give this game a 9.5 rating when they've jumped on other developers for not innovating their sequels enough (like gamespot does with nintendo)

3/12/2010 2:37:01 AM

Just curious, but what sort of innovations are you expecting to see out of a RTS these days?

I'm not saying it's not possible, but I'm curious about the types of innovation you're picturing in your head that you aren't seeing in this product. To me it would make sense to stay close to your base with a game like Starcraft b/c it is a familiar product to so many people. Think back to the 3d graphical "innovation" rolled out with Warcraft III. It served absolutely no purpose in gameplay, and restricted the viewable area on the screen to crap.

3/12/2010 8:29:27 AM

I would just like to see something in the game that was impressive or surprising.

Maybe it will all be in the story of the single player campaign.

3/12/2010 9:34:53 AM

Quote :

"I'm feeling oddly pessimistic about this game considering starcraft is one of my favorite games of all time, even the 3d engine has a 2d feel, from the videos I've seen there doesn't seem to be anything interesting about shadows, lighting, line of sight that some 3d games starting doing a couple years after the original starcraft came out oh well, I'm sure I will still play the hell out of this game and that's what matters, I'm just not sure the review sites should give this game a 9.5 rating when they've jumped on other developers for not innovating their sequels enough (like gamespot does with nintendo)"

Since when have RTS games been about graphics? Gameplay is king and what company is better at that than Blizzard?

lol ok Nintendo is pretty damn good at it too

3/12/2010 9:49:58 AM

I agree

WoW, starcraft, Diablo 2 all were basic in terms of graphics and were mostly excellent at gameplay.

But god damn blizzard, its 2010. Maybe I need to see starcraft 2 on max settings on my desktop and not medium on my laptop, but its all so meh.

3/12/2010 9:55:08 AM

Why waste money on graphics if the cash is still pouring in? That's just more development costs they don't have to pursue.

3/12/2010 10:23:14 AM

I haven't played the beta yet, but there are a lot of features that RTS games nowadays do well that SC2 seems to ignore:

-use of cover modifiers
-zooming in/out with mousewheel (i hated the lack of this in SC)
-individual unit AI, see company of heros where units seek cover, etc.
-limits to # of selectable units (SC1 had like 12 max selectable units, should be infinite)
-dynamic voices of units (again, see COH, where units call out what they are being attacked by)


That's just off the top of my head....

3/12/2010 1:33:21 PM

^ From what I've seen, you can zoom. Though, I'm not sure if it's the same kind of zoom that you're talking about...

And in SC2, I believe you have the ability to select 5 groups of 24(?) units. So, 120 units total. I think that's plenty.

[Edited on March 12, 2010 at 1:55 PM. Reason : Don't know about the rest of those bullets.]

3/12/2010 1:55:26 PM

Quote :

"Why waste money on graphics if the cash is still pouring in? That's just more development costs they don't have to pursue."

That's why I wish people would actually demand graphics advancement before they fork over all their money to blizzard.

It's why shovelware crap on the wii is so successful. When you don't expect anything the developer won't give you anything.

3/12/2010 2:01:17 PM

The groups are not limited to any max number. The max number of units you can see in the window is 24 but you can set a group of however many units you want. Last time I played zerg my #1 was 64 mutas. You can set groups to 1-0 on the keyboard also.

I do wish you could zoom out. The perspective shift (ala Warcraft 3) is pretty much useless.

3/12/2010 2:32:24 PM

Why would Blizzard want to make the graphics more advanced? The more advanced the graphics, the smaller the population of consumers who have hardware capable of running the game smoothly. It's in Blizzards best interests to dumb the graphics down to maximize the ranges of machines able to run SC2 well.

3/12/2010 5:08:35 PM

Quote :

"Just curious, but what sort of innovations are you expecting to see out of a RTS these days? I'm not saying it's not possible, but I'm curious about the types of innovation you're picturing in your head that you aren't seeing in this product. To me it would make sense to stay close to your base with a game like Starcraft b/c it is a familiar product to so many people. Think back to the 3d graphical "innovation" rolled out with Warcraft III. It served absolutely no purpose in gameplay, and restricted the viewable area on the screen to crap."

well the weird thing is is that warcraft 3 seems like a bigger step forward than this game, that took a whole new approach with the smaller group and hero based gameplay, and yea the 3d graphics didn't do much (but I'd still take them over 2d) and this game seems the same way which I guess is what bothers me

but 3d graphics can be essential too, if you play a game like ground control for instance, the lighting, line of sight, physics were essential to the strategy in terms of your accuracy, effectiveness and whether you could even see units

I'm just not sure I'm seeing that but this is just based on some videos I've seen, in terms of big gameplay innovations I'm not sure, but command and conquer four does seem to be taking a new approach but then again some of the fans are bitching and moaning about it

3/12/2010 8:50:23 PM

I really don't understand the complaints about the graphics. The game looks gorgeous, and that's just from watching 1080p video on Youtube. I've played DoW II maxed out on my desktop and it's significantly prettier than that game. I'm not really sure what you guys are expecting. An RTS is never going to look like Crysis.

Quote :

"well the weird thing is is that warcraft 3 seems like a bigger step forward than this game, that took a whole new approach with the smaller group and hero based gameplay"

Yeah, but people hated that shit, especially Starcraft players. In any case, the innovations you're looking for are going to be found in the single player campaign. The multiplayer was always going to be classic Starcraft, but with new units and macro mechanics.

The bottom line is that Starcraft 2 was made for people who liked Starcraft. If you prefer the Relic style RTS where all you do is tell your units where to move and let the AI fight it out, then go play those games. Starcraft 2 isn't for you. The things you're asking for aren't innovations, they are core differences between a tactical RTS like Company of Heroes and a more strategic RTS where the main focus is on base building and resource collecting/consumption. It's almost like two completely different genres.

[Edited on March 12, 2010 at 9:44 PM. Reason : :]

3/12/2010 9:28:12 PM

FUCK ANYONE WHO LIKES THIS GAMe

I WANT THE PERFECT GAME MADE FOR MEEEEE!!!1



RAWRAARWARWARWARRWWRARWARWARWARWARWRAWRW FREEEEEMAAAAN!

3/13/2010 1:07:43 AM

PLayed 3rd game. Other guy went straight for the banshee's. I saw this rush to air and I went straight for the anti-air fighter. His banshees came in and destroyed by SCV's but his entire force was destroyed.

Counter attacked and he didnt have anything else left.

3/13/2010 12:39:53 PM

I find it odd that the factory doesnt have a single unit that can attack air units. Your only options are marines or building air units.

3/13/2010 1:07:45 PM

Quote :

"But seriously, the AI is MUCh better, if you tell your units to attack a building, and the enemy attacks you with units, your units automatically switch to the danger."

This sort of thing actually pisses me off a lot in some strategy games. If my units are just roaming the enemy base and decide to attack a building, they should definitely priority-target enemy units if they start getting attacked... but if I directly order my units to attack a building, they had damn well better attack that building and not stop for any reason besides death or new orders.

That said, I haven't actually played the beta yet since I gave it to a friend who actually would have time.

[Edited on March 14, 2010 at 1:15 AM. Reason : .]

3/14/2010 1:13:20 AM

I lied.

The Thor can hit air units.

But I still haven't seen any battle reports or replays that show me how the Thor is any good in multi-player matches

3/14/2010 7:24:57 PM

massing marines will destroy all air and a lot of ground units.. especially if you get stimpacks + attack upgrade

3/14/2010 9:34:11 PM

I was thinking about going straight marines in multiplayer. Havent been able to yet because the first 5 matches almost force you to go air because of the rocks

3/14/2010 10:44:45 PM

If it's anything like SC1, massing marines will get your entire army killed by two high templars using lightning storm.

3/15/2010 4:05:29 AM

Anybody else unable to log in today?

3/16/2010 2:19:56 PM

Im at work right now or I'd check on this for you -- it is the normal patch/maintenance day for Blizzard in relation to World of Warcraft -- perhaps it effects the SC2 beta/Battle.net 2.0 stuff as well? I'd be surprised if this was the case, but you never know.

3/16/2010 3:00:34 PM

Hmm, it's working now, not sure what the deal was.

3/16/2010 3:48:40 PM

i have an extra beta key

i am selling it

i am a terrible person

PM me if you are interested

3/18/2010 1:34:53 AM

just so everyone knows -- if you are in the beta test currently, check your registered email -- you have been mailed a second beta key for you to share with a friend.

3/18/2010 7:51:36 AM

I hear this thing runs on netbooks. C/D?

3/18/2010 8:16:47 AM

Should have sold it about 2 weeks ago when they were all selling for $150+

now they are down around $40-$50

3/18/2010 8:46:36 AM

^^^thats awesome. anyone care to send me a beta key?

also, mac beta may be out in april, says blizzard http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/14/blizzard-hoping-for-starcraft-2-mac-beta-client-in-april/

Quote :

"According to recent Twitter Q&A with the game's devs, the studio is "currently working on a Mac version of the beta and hope to release it sometime in April." Unfortunately, it seems that if you didn't register many moons ago, you still might not be eligible for inclusion, as the developers also reveal that "We have no plans to make an open beta at this time.""

3/18/2010 9:22:54 AM

Quote :

"just so everyone knows -- if you are in the beta test currently, check your registered email -- you have been mailed a second beta key for you to share with a friend."

that is an invalid key unfortunately Waiting to hear back from blizzard support about why its invalid incase they accidentally sent out these emails when they weren't supposed to.

[Edited on March 18, 2010 at 10:27 AM. Reason : .]

3/18/2010 10:27:06 AM