Just got my Beta invite yesterday. Played a few matches as Protoss and got totally owned by Zerg opponents, but did well against terran/protoss. I'll check out the build order links posted above, as I'm getting completely dominated by Zerg right now. I've only won 3 out of 7 matches total, which is rather poor for me, because I'm pretty good at most video games. So far I really like everything about the game, already excited to get home and play non-stop tonight.

[Edited on May 17, 2010 at 10:25 AM. Reason : -]

5/17/2010 10:07:58 AM

Quote :

"Also, according to TL beta closes 5/17"

is this still true?

5/17/2010 2:12:01 PM

5/27 is what i'm hearing now.

Which makes sense. 2 months out of release.

5/17/2010 2:13:03 PM

link me

5/17/2010 2:17:40 PM

Quote :

"Dear Amazon.com Customer, The Amazon Video Games team thanks you for your pre-order of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Now it's time to get you your pre-order bonus code to participate in the Starcraft II beta. Here is your bonus code: This code will give you access to the StarCraft II beta. This beta will be available through May 17th."

That is where people were getting the May 17th date. But it doesn't make sense to be giving out beta keys the day before the beta closes and another round went out yesterday.

Quote :

"We'd like to let all of our StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty beta test participants know that the first phase of the beta test will be coming to an end in all regions on Monday, May 31. "

Source

5/17/2010 2:32:00 PM

Quote :

" Played a few matches as Protoss and got totally owned by Zerg opponents"

What is Zerg doing to beat you? You definitely have the upper hand in this matchup.

5/17/2010 3:06:48 PM

It was mainly me being new to the game. After reading through the build orders for protoss, I'm winning most of my games now. I have the most trouble against terran.

5/18/2010 1:52:38 PM

Blizzard downloader is becoming ridiculously annoying. It's been running for over 2 hours, and still has 4 more to go. It is sucking my bandwidth so hard, any open browser windows are reduced to crawl speed. Oh well.

Any good sites for absolute beginners? I haven't played SC1 in at least 3 years.

5/18/2010 6:09:40 PM

http://www.youtube.com/user/hdstarcraft?blend=1&ob=4
http://www.youtube.com/user/huskystarcraft?blend=1&ob=4

Both of those channels have a lot of sc2beta videos posted.

http://www.teamliquid.net/sc2/

More videos.
Just a warning though, you can't really play like they do unless you have the micro skills to match. Non-pro's play a very different game but watching the pros can help you a lot with strategies, micro and figuring out good army comps. The other problem with videos is they could be from different patches where certain strategies that were OP are no longer viable.

I don't know of anywhere with written commentary of any worth. I've just mostly watched videos. When I first got the beta I did a few custom games versus AI to get the feel of it and explore the new tech trees and units. There's an in game tech tree that is very useful for a beginner. Then once you get the hang of things start playing ranked quick matches in the 1v1 or 2v2random leagues (if you don't have a partner). You'll suck at first, every one does. When I first started I placed into Copper in 2v2 with SandSanta, then after 50 or so games the database got reset and we placed into Silver. Now Golovko and I are in the upper levels of the Gold league after playing ~300 games.

5/18/2010 7:34:25 PM

Don't know if I've said this before but I've been using warpgates more and more as protoss. I would definitely suggest going the warpgate route. You can do some serious damage with a bunch of warpgates and a warp prism. I fucked up a terran base by warping in 5 Dark Templars at their mineral line towards the end of the game while they were busy attacking our base.

5/19/2010 2:25:20 PM

I'm doing a lot better with toss now. I won 8 games in a row, 12/15 won. Two losses to toss players and one loss to terran. I learned a lot from my losses to the tosses too.

5/20/2010 9:53:04 AM

^^ I did a play where I was able to hide a pylon inside another protoss's base. So, whenever I attacked the front ramp, I warped in a bunch of stalkers and zealots inside the base and killed the probe line. It was very effective. He could not survive it more than once.

5/20/2010 1:23:11 PM

Hey guys..... so I was trying to resist pre-ordering a copy for the beta key until I finished stuff for work. Turns out now the beta keys are no longer available... anyone have a key I can have or an account they aren't using?

Please please send me a PM... I've been watching way too many replays... I need to play!

5/20/2010 8:05:47 PM

Anybody have any luck getting no lag with 4v4 yet?

5/22/2010 12:18:37 PM

More like, anyone been able to login without the "Unable to download authenticator module" error?

5/22/2010 12:26:05 PM

^ yeah i had that last night, works now though

5/22/2010 12:55:51 PM

Still having that issue

5/22/2010 1:16:53 PM

I feel like Blizzard is releasing patches in reverse order some how. Starting with least buggiest build to most buggy.

5/22/2010 9:49:12 PM

Void Rays are still way overpowered, but I love them so. I've been in games where I was completely broken, and all I had left was 4 void rays, but still destroyed my opponents entire base.

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 11:08 AM. Reason : -]

5/24/2010 11:07:44 AM

they're good when your opponent isn't focused in Anti-Air or prepared. A couple can really do some serious damage if you catch them off guard especially with speed upgrades. Having a lot of stalkers is a good counter to a lot of void rays.

Or if you are zerg, a lot of hydras/mutas will rape.

[Edited on May 24, 2010 at 11:54 AM. Reason : .]

5/24/2010 11:52:56 AM

Every game tonight was so laggy it was unplayable. Anyone else having that issue? Since the last patch just getting tons of lag.

5/25/2010 10:56:43 PM

yeah...especially the 3v3/4v4

Just played a 2v2 on Twilight Fortress. All protoss. Of course my partner dropped as soon as the game loaded so I ended up 2v1 and I won lol. I recently discovered that if a player drops from the game their resources are auto shared with you. So i basically just kept on building probes/pylons/expansions with my ally's probes while doing the same for me. Then massed Stalkers/Zealots with charge/blink (via 6 warpgates). Then eventually got 3 void rays but it was all over before i got to do much with them lol.

The irony is I HATE twilight fortress and Azaka and I almost never win on that map.


(screen capturing the replay for youtube)

[Edited on May 25, 2010 at 11:11 PM. Reason : .]

5/25/2010 11:10:36 PM

Quote :

" I recently discovered that if a player drops from the game their resources are auto shared with you."

That is NOT the case. I watched the replay you sent me and your partner ended the game with 5400-something minerals and 1200-something gas. You straight 2v1'd them without any additional resources or help.

That was an epic queue'd blink up the side of their base around the mass of cannons in the front. Your micro was pretty good that game, kiting all those zealots with the stalkers.

5/26/2010 3:29:29 AM

I'm quickly moving up the ranks! I think I should try Terran next, because I have a tight Protoss build order that wins more than it loses.

5/26/2010 9:02:16 AM

So uh, anybody else think that zerg needs a significant buff? For the life of me, I can not win if I'm playing a terran or protoss who does an early-mid game push. Dividing up larvae between drones and lings and whatnot, is making it very hard to compete against a decent toss or terran.

5/26/2010 2:45:37 PM

^your queens larva ability should be on cool down non stop throughout the game. And expand early and often so you have several hatcheries. When I play zerg I usually end up having more larva than I can use with my resources.

5/26/2010 2:56:42 PM

^ Yep. Other zerg players tell me they keep their hatcheries and queens hotkeyed for quick casting of spawn larvae. I usually have plenty of larva late-game too. A 13 pool, 14 Hatch (or thereabouts) is really common, solid.

5/26/2010 6:36:09 PM

^I've actually found 15hatch/14pool to be a pretty solid opening. You'll get lings and a queen just in time for defending.

5/26/2010 8:04:30 PM

Ugh. Is there not some way to play a 1 vs AI match? In every 1 vs 1 I've played so far, I get destroyed before I can even figure out what the new stuff is and how to use it.

5/26/2010 10:04:35 PM

^ No AI option in the beta. After you finish your placements, it should even up some! I hear it's so laggy atm, no point in playing!

5/26/2010 10:30:11 PM

You can play vs ai. Create a game and make the second player the computer. You can only play very easy though. It's good for learning units and stuff.

5/26/2010 10:32:39 PM

^ Good to know. I forgot about that completely!

5/26/2010 10:55:59 PM

Thanks for that tip, that'll help me a lot!

Also, I don't know why I didn't think about this before: http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/StarCraft_Wiki

Now I finally have a semi-decent idea of what unit and structure does what. I had no idea previously what the Raven was for.

5/27/2010 9:35:09 AM

Anyone know if there is a way to turn smartcasting off?
(http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Smartcast)

[Edited on May 27, 2010 at 10:03 AM. Reason : nvm the rest of that shit]

5/27/2010 9:55:49 AM

If I remember correctly(I Think this is how it was in old SC too..) storms don't stack. So why would you want 12 in one spot?

5/27/2010 10:00:23 AM

^Yeah, it's been a while since I played the game.

I was theorycrafting the shit out of things when I made that post and then my brain kicked in and reminded me that's not how they work.


...Though reading more of that smartcasting wiki page brings me to a completely different question: Why would zerg unit transformations be smartcast?

[Edited on May 27, 2010 at 10:09 AM. Reason : .]

5/27/2010 10:04:32 AM

Also, if you click 'help' in-game you get a very useful tech tree and unit tree with what a unit is strong against/weak against etc.

5/27/2010 10:13:10 AM

^^ My guess is although at times you might want to transform an entire batch of units, more often then not you wouldn't want to select and make a huge batch of transforming units.

For example with overlords, you usually only want a few to transform not 12 of them. At that point I think it is better to have it smart cast and just click the number times for the amount of units you want to transform vs. accidentally making a huge batch of something you didn't want. It isn't a big deal to click 10 times really fast to make 10 of something, but could be a big deal to have a group and accidentally click once and end up with 10 of something and no resources.

5/27/2010 10:35:13 AM

yo man people hate the zerg rush. so many people just rage quit.

5/27/2010 11:52:57 AM

Zerg rush is pretty effective most of the time, but my toss build order is setup to counter it pretty easily. If I survive the initial rush, zerg has less than 5% chance of winning the game.

5/27/2010 11:58:49 AM

Zerg rush almost never works in higher level play. Scouting will tell you if you should expect a 6pool rush. Countering it as Protoss is easy.

5/27/2010 12:03:17 PM

I'm not in higher level play yet, still in copper league, but I'm Rank 2.

5/27/2010 1:59:36 PM

true true. but its so cheesy its funny. you definitely feel the impending doom if they counter it though.

5/27/2010 2:18:59 PM

When they first released 3v3/4v4 and the lag was unplayable because you'd get dropped 5 or 10 minutes in...Azaka and I (and our partner) in a 3v3 rushed with our probes/drones as soon as the game started

We did take out one base but lost as soon as the other players got zerglings/zealots. it was quite funny.

5/27/2010 2:22:20 PM

Last night in a 4v4 we had a probe rush from all 4 of the other team. I was going for a 14 hatch/15pool fast expand and had to cancel the hatchery and switch to the pool immediately. The probes got 2 bases but when they got to me I had 6 lings and 2 spine crawlers. Our 4th player went straight to cannons and was safe also.

After that I gave control of my units to one of the guys that got killed and let him micro them in the other base while I concentrated on pumping out lings and then transitioning to roaches. Our 4th was very distracted by a sick gf and only built about 8 zealots in the same amount of time I built about 30 speedlings and 20 roaches with speed upgrade. The game was pretty close at first because it took so long for my 10 or so lings to kill the front two bases that the terran and protoss in the back had enough time to build up 3 gateways and 4 factories but they failed at the macro game by creating too many buildings and not enough units.

Overall the game was won by my macro with Zues micro'ing my units. This was in Gold 4v4 and these guys were favored, so apparently they've been using that strat pretty successfully.

5/27/2010 2:44:44 PM

You better not be raiding tonight. It is our last night to play together since i'll be in New Orleans all weekend before beta ends.

If Monday is the last day then I will be back in time for one last night of steam rolling n00bs.

5/27/2010 2:49:41 PM

Just had an epic 3v3 (really 2v3). Uploading the replay to youtube.

I lost my base from a double zerg rush very early in the game but I saved all my probes and rebuilt at my expansion. 2nd teammate quit after that, 3rd teammate...well i don't know what he was doing except playing SimBase the entire game and only encountered the other players at the very end.

I ended up having a base setup at my expansion, the high yield and the opposing Zerg's expansion

The other players were terrible so thats a big part of why I won but it was still fun.

5/27/2010 8:03:58 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO0Bap6iPMk&feature=youtube_gdata

Part 1 of 3

Its laggy to watch so I think i need to invest in better capture software or computer

5/27/2010 8:40:48 PM

^Why is everything shrouded in grey for the first 20 seconds?

[Edited on May 27, 2010 at 9:21 PM. Reason : v definitely not Fog of War. Was curious what sort of video error, but 'meh youtube' works too]

5/27/2010 8:59:35 PM

you mean in game fog of war or the actual video overlay? the latter is a youtube issue i think. It wasn't there until I uploaded it. The former I thought I edited out but maybe I didn't haha. I have to start quicktime screen capture then switch SC2 to full screen so i'm usually scrolled off the screen at start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qi_cGB0pFIU

part 2 of 3 This ones better in terms of FPS i think.

uploading part 3 of 3 now to youtube. I think its the best rip out of the 3. You can see my queued blink there too.

[Edited on May 27, 2010 at 9:27 PM. Reason : .]

5/27/2010 9:18:48 PM