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Starcraft 2

Shadow Wolf

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Conan The Politician Newbie

Conan The Politician

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Another week has passed, and I'm assuming with it another draft of opt-ins/beta invites. Anyone else get their keys?

From what I've gathered about the game, both my own observations and the observations of others, the ladder system is supposedly not working correctly. Most matches people come across are against opponents who are usually 1-2 leagues difference.

Macromanagement has become easier, while economy/production has an added element to it, with each race having their own unique take on this element.

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Conan The Politician Newbie

Conan The Politician

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A few days have come and gone, and Blizzard has taken a different approach for the next wave of beta invites. Anyone who has already received a beta key may have received an ADDITIONAL beta key to give out to a friend via e-mail (no doubt via the address tied to his/her battle.net account). If you already got your key in a previous wave, check your e-mail, and spread the love!

I'm not sure if this is in addition to a wave of standard opt-ins, but if this is all they did to include more players into the beta, I can sympathize with anyone who'd be upset over such an action. Hear me out:

The simple fact that anyone can be invited by a beta-tester leaves the opportunity for people who weren't even waiting for the game (or even knew about it) to get in. The result: a bunch of folks who'll probably dabble with a few matches and then drop it when they find out they aren't that much into a game like Starcraft 2. This will lead to wasted invites and less data/feedback from the community.

Personally, I gave my additional beta key to a fellow opt-in who wasn't fortunate enough to get picked in any of the waves as of yet.

Be responsible with the invites; there are plenty of foaming-at-the-mouth opt-ins to choose from.</soapbox>

Also,to anyone else that's enjoying the beta, throw your battle.net 2.0 handle out on a post. Unless IRC channel is abuzz with sc2, I don't see anyone giving out names.

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BardicKnowledge Newbie

BardicKnowledge

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In case anyone here still has an extra invite with no one to give it to, I really want a key :P My contact details are in my profile, or you can PM me stuff also. I get back to the States on the 23rd, I'm at a conference with my wife until then (in Riva del Garda, Italy...which sounds great until you realize that it's too cold to swim, I can't afford windsurfing, and I don't speak Italian.)

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friendlyHunter Newbie

friendlyHunter

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I'd love a key as well. It'll be fun to see if I got good at a game I've never played just by watching too many beta replays =P

Can't wait to experience the matchmaking system too... SC's BNet is a waste of time for me (hard to find games, even harder to find games that are even close to being evenly matched), and I've found ICCUP to be too difficult for my casual play-style. Yet somehow I managed to win the OCR Starcraft tournament... we should hurry up and have another one before SC2 comes out!

Also if anyone has a beta key they can lend me when the map editor comes out... I would be eternally grateful. I have some big plans for the map editor (VERY ACHIEVABLE plans mind you), and wouldn't mind getting a head start.

Without revealing too much, I plan to make a graphics mod that will make the gameplay much much easier to read (the original SC's team colours and palette and death animations and projectiles and attack animations are vastly superior to SC2 in this regard), bring back the unique styles of the original SC's Terran and Protoss and Zerg sprites (I'll also borrow from SC2 cinematic art, concept art, fan art, SC1 cinematic art, etc.), and substantially improve the quality and realism of the graphics.

The first version of the mod will strictly avoid any model-editing of clickable objects (units, buildings, etc), in order to keep the gameplay, technically, EXACTLY the same. Later, I'll edit the unit/building models themselves (not just the textures and death animations and unclickable particles), and won't quit until no SC fan could possibly like SC2's original unit/building models over the new ones. The only problem is, when I'm finished, SC2's weak-ass sound effects and Protoss voices will no longer fit with the graphics :(

I'm also planning a simple(ish) yet very deep multiplayer murder-mystery-ish type map/game that will hopefully become popular, and eventually, Pyramid Escape 2. Can't wait :)!!

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  • 1 month later...
Conan The Politician Newbie

Conan The Politician

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As a well-concealed bump, I'm here to say (for those of you who don't know) that there is a new way to get yourself a beta key for SC2: pay 5 bucks for the preorder at Gamestop, and they will print out a beta key for you on the receipt.

If you've already pre-ordered at a particular Gamestop, I suggest you go over there and pick up the key (which you are absolutely entitled to). I was able to pick up my 3rd key this way without need of a receipt, so long as you have your name in their pre-order list database.

There's a policy for online pre-orders: If you use the beta-key provided by the pre-order, you cannot cancel that pre-order. I'm sure that there's some sort of fail-safe in place to ensure that you can't cancel, but pre-ordering in person is supposedly a different matter entirely. I've heard stories from a few folks that have managed to get their beta-key and then cancel the pre-order.

So with this being the most accessible point in the beta as of yet, one question remains: when the hell is the OC community going to have its first SCII tournament?

Five bucks for a beta key -- some fellows out there on ebay must be feeling pretty darn stupid about now.

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Conan The Politician Newbie

Conan The Politician

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One more bit of good news after another: a significant patch has come to the SCII beta. It has added a good bit of 1v1 and 2v2 maps for ladder and regular matches.

In addition, they have a working version of the SCII Map Editor. Though I haven't tried any of the scripting abilities (I probably won't either), it should be something to look forward to. If it's going to be more robust than the Warcraft III map editor, I can't wait to see what it can deliver. You should be able to to test the maps you create, I hear, while not being able to play online with them just yet.

On gameplay customization, they have FINALLY allowed for hotkey templates to choose from. That's right: Starcraft finally has the ability to use a grid-style hotkey layout! Your keyboard hand can finally stay on one spot of the keyboard to use all building and unit abilities universally! I'm not sure if mods/add-ons have allowed for this on the first Starcraft in the past, but I'm excited all the same.

As far as mechanics are concerned, they turned my zerg-world upside down! You can no longer target a unit/building with an ability or command within a group via the wire-frame ( the box where all of the units are displayed within a group. No more quick chrono-boosting for Protoss, and no more quick spawn larvas for Zerg (at least not in the sense that most players are accustomed to).

Also, larva are no longer lost due to canceling an egg morph. It's causing quite a stir balance-wise, as zerg players can stretch the amount of larva they have at a hatchery long before a queen comes into play (I've heard folks putting out 10-12 zerglings on a 6 worker spawning pool rush, rather than the standard 6 zerglings). It also allows for crazy unit switches on the flip of a dime. Say you're building up your economy and begin to produce 9 drones at your hatcheries. You scout to find that your opponent is about to attack you early. You can immediately cancel all of those workers and turn them into zerglings instead. While this may seem all good from a flavor stand-point (zerg are adaptive little beasties), players who play zerg, protoss, and terran seem to be on both sides of the fence as to how this will play out. Here's a thread about the zergling exploit:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121021

Also, using the hatchery's 'Select Larva' command will now select eggs if there are no larva. Most zerg players are finding this annoying to no end:

http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121025

Hmm, I might just do that.... also ten bucks on me winning said tournament :nicework:

Money, eh? Think there should be an entry fee for a community tournament? Cash prizes for the top players, eh? EH??

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Conan The Politician Newbie

Conan The Politician

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I vote for a new thread - this one was started waaaay back when they announced the game. That's more than 4 final stretches ago!

I'll do something about that ;). Here's the link to the new thread:

http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=28974

I don't know if there's any red tape I've got to go through in order to do this, but there it is. Let the community know who you are on the SCII Beta!!!

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