[skelethulu]

[Kappuru]

Ok, I'm in a tournament the day after tomorrow and need a bit of practice. I'm up for some games tomorrow night if SBers want to oblige.
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[oh my god immaculate]

okay

[skelethulu]

Really hate this game so far! Mostly because all I can do with it while battle net is down is watch the opening cinematic and change the options. Can't even play as a guest! "To enable offline play, connect to Battle.net to authorize your game client blah blah blah" it says. So the 1 hour I'm able to play today is lost thanks to their dumb ass system. I'll go see if somebody has cracked this now.
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[another god]

My b.net account is rrazcueta hat gmail and my game name is sigurd. Anyone want to get in some games?

[Isfet]

so maybe this was established elsewhere, but is it true that you can install/play this game on any computer than can run WoW? because i'd really like to pick this up, but don't have the money to drop on an entirely new PC right now.

[Loki Laufeyson]

[Talbain]

[Isfet]

hmmm. ok then, i guess i'll just have to go with my original plan then and ask a friend who has the game to come over and try to install it here.

[skelethulu]

[another god]

[parker]

[firenze]

[Talbain]

Mine's actually not as old as that, and has a dedicated graphics card. It's just that it's a shit graphics card (8400M GS - it's a Dell line that only had one run due to basically being a total pos). =( Get really, REALLY bad lag. Frameskipping like mad. But I guess I'm surprised? I dunno, maybe I did something wrong... will check out later.
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[Broco]

So I downloaded a copy and messed around with it for an hour or so this evening. First impression: stating the obvious here, but overall, very strong sense that this is the same game I played a decade ago. I actually only had vague memories of the Starcraft by this point, but this brought them all back to me. In campaign mode, the first mission is a tactical walkaround with a fixed number of units, and the second is destroying a large/established but strangely unaggressive enemy base sending small waves at you when it feels like. Then, I tried fake-multiplayer against an AI to start learning the ropes, and it's the same micromanagy experience with the two little resource counters increasing in the corner and most things are idle until you click on them. Well, since I usually prefer to revisit genres containing a game I'd already mastered (in this case, Warcraft II) only when some fundamentally fresh element has been added to the experience, probably this wasn't the best purchase for me. (Anyone have any suggestions for very different-feeling RTSes, by the way?)

It mostly reminds me of the reason why I stopped playing RTSes way back when. I tend to be acutely aware of every moment I waste thinking about my next move as opposed to clicking on things -- precious seconds that the unseen foe is using to get ahead of me. And I go through all these little self-recriminations as I notice that I left that barracks idle, that I left resources accumulate without spending them, that I forgot to send that unit scouting, etc. So most of the game is covered by a miasma of low-grade stress and guilt. It's really this that saps my enjoyment of the game, personally, not the sandcastle-destroying stuff haze was talking about (I'm fine with that -- I'm a born rusher). And it seems like I'd have to improve to a very high level of micromanagement smoothness before I stopped feeling like this.

[CubaLibre]

Broco this is probably the millionth time I've mentioned them in this thread but try the Total War games (Rome at the earliest, don't go before that). Of course the campaign has a whole 4x overlay, but the battles themselves are pure RTS, no resource management, and they're much more about terrain, formation and tactical maneuver rather than pure micro. Online play is just the straight RTS part, so if you're looking for straight competition that's where you might want to go.
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Let's Play, starring me.

[geinou]

Ok, finally got my copy. I'm afraid of installing it.

[Mr. Mechanical]

The RPS chatter has got me wanting to play this just for the singleplayer. Sounds like a lot of fun.
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[notbov]

[geinou]

After playing some games, I got reminded why I'm not a very good RTS player. Even the CPU on normal builds an whole army in 5 minutes. In 5 minutes, I only have like 3 Space Marines.

Will probably only play the campaign and hope the CPU isn't kicking my butt there...

[skelethulu]

geinou I'd suggest you also play the challenge maps once you finish / get bored with the campaign! They are probably my single favorite thing in here, and they can actually help a little as training for the admittedly difficult to enter multiplayer.
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[Maztorre]

The campaign is fantastic. Each of the missions I've played so far have centred around huge stage-spanning gimmicks, or require deft use of small specialised combat units. Best comparison I can make is that the missions are the cream of what the early C&C games were doing with commando and spy missions etc, but without the filler to round out the mission count. If you enjoyed those games you'll have a lot to like in the campaign.

The writing for the cutscenes is hilaribad. I wish I kept a tally for the amount of times I quoted Raynor/the Protoss' dialogue before they actually said it. I find it somewhat endearing, if only because the actual reading of the lines is of extremely high quality. Everyone in the StarCraft universe is dedicated to helping their bros deliver bad-ass one-liners at all times.

[geinou]

[Pat the Great]

It's time to kick this revolution into overdrive.
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-pat m.
twitter

[notbov]

do the guess passes only give access to the MP game, or to the campaign too? i'm on the fence, but i'd rather not grab one if i'm going to spend my time out in the matchmaking wilderness.

[geinou]

Well, the passes in my box don't say something about MP only, yet, you can only play for 7 hours (or 14 days) with one guest pass (according to the text on the pass). So, I guess it's MP only, probably with the option to play against the AI.

[evnvnv]

oh star craft... does anyone have a spare guest pass they are willing to part with? really curious about how this will run on my laptop...i will surely get my butt whipped in multiplayer for all time, but the single player campaign does look pretty interesting! PM me if you want to do your good deed for the day :)
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The text will not live forever. The cup are small

[another god]

This game!

There's so much to it. Anyone find a place with good Pro replays?
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interdimensional

[firenze]

[Pat the Great]

[DJ]

Just picked this up. deusjester at thegeemails dot com if you wanna add my RealID thinger (just tell me who you are in the message).
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[Talbain]

esserius at gmail dot com add me!
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[geinou]

Hey, I did play multiplayer and I did win a couple of games. I kinda like it. Who would have thought that?

[internisus]

Hullo! Eurogamer posted a story today about overheating caused by SC2's process for rendering stuff. Basically (and basic is all I can understand), it seems that, if your video card is not kept busy making things fancy, then it will try and draw frames faster and faster until time and space fold into one another and your computer buckles into a singularity.

I have a GT 9600, 2GB RAM, and an E6550 Core2Duo; would anyone happen to have an opinion as to whether I would be able to run this game well? I'm a little distressed because Blizzard's response to the problem did not mention that they would be patching it away.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/starcraft-ii-is-melting-graphics-cards

[skelethulu]

I was experiencing the overheating! If you set those framerate limiters your system will run fine without overheating. This also could have been fixed (well, worked around without modifying some obscure txt file) if the vsync option actually enabled vsync for the front end and cutscenes. So for me I would overheat if I sat in the menus for like 15 minutes or hung out on the bridge for a while.

Seems to me like your system would run this game at High or just under High settings (mostly depending on whether you have 512MB or more on that graphics card).
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[XORDYH]

Misplaced blame. The hardware should throttle itself if it reaches out-of-spec operating temperatures, which most modern hardware already does. Lack of frame-rate limiters in games used to be the rule rather than the exception.

[Broco]

Tycho's comments on Starcraft II are unusually apt:

[another god]

It's not just polish. That's fucking ridiculous.
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interdimensional

[Talbain]

My review.
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[haze]

wait, warcraft III was innovative?

because a couple fans created tower defense and dota in the map editor? both of which existed first in SC1 anyway

[notbov]

well, even if it didn't do the whole action-RPG/RTS thing first, it did it pretty well, and was a pretty radical shift from what a lot of RTSes were at the time (including SC and WCII)

when he says it's just polish, he's probably going after how, between the two games, we've gotten both of the Myth games, every Relic RTS and every Total War game. it is a lot of innovation between the two games, but i'm willing to file this under "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" (this is kinda Blizzard's M.O. anyways)