StarCraft II

**RedRamage** · 09-09-2009, 12:40 PM

Anyone know when SC2 is due out?

**Deleterious** · 09-09-2009, 01:16 PM

No official release date yet.

There was a financial report from Activision (They own Blizzard now). The report said they expected it to be released in the first half of 2010.

**whitesox901** · 09-09-2009, 03:27 PM

SCII looks to be entertaining, I never got into the first one, and I was really looking forward to Starcraft Ghost until they pulled the plug on it.

**EatEmUpTigers711** · 09-09-2009, 03:28 PM

Originally Posted by Deleterious

No official release date yet.

There was a financial report from Activision (They own Blizzard now). The report said they expected it to be released in the first half of 2010.

They've given so many different dates up until now, but I think they've finally tried to nail down the First Quarter of 2010 as the expected release date.

**Deleterious** · 09-09-2009, 05:35 PM

After waiting for two WoW expansions, I have learned Blizzard will never give any type of official date until the game has gone gold.

**Shinma** · 02-21-2010, 04:06 PM

The minimum system requirements for the Starcraft II Beta are as follows:
PC Minimum Requirements:
• Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1/Windows 7
• 2.2 Ghz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
• 1 GB system RAM/1.5 GB for Vista and Windows 7
• 128 MB NVidia GeForce 6600 GT/ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card
• 1024x768 minimum display resolution
• 4 GB free hard space (Beta)
• Broadband connection

*Note* the final requirements for Starcraft II have not yet been determined. Due to ongoing development the minimum requirements listed above are subject to change at any time. During this phase a Mac version will NOT be available, please check back.

**Deleterious** · 05-04-2010, 09:04 AM

Blizzard announced July 27th as the release date.

StarCraft II

**lesgoblu02** · 07-06-2010, 08:23 PM

Look for the line of nerds at best buy....

**Greenwit** · 07-09-2010, 12:12 PM

That's one of those no brainer pick ups if you consider yourself a 'gamer.' The other that comes to mind is Diablo whenever that comes out. Both Blizzard and both, if they follow their history, will be playable on most rigs. I thought they did a real nice job with WoW as far as graphics and playability is concerned. I just hope with the new StarCraft they don't bury half the screen in the user interface like they did the first time around.

**whitesox901** · 07-11-2010, 02:42 AM

I can't wait for Starcraft 2. I know that there is always changes in sequels to games, but they should of really of kept the Terran music from SC1.

Best video game music ever!!!!!!*

*Especially at the 35 second mark. Mercy.

**Deleterious** · 07-19-2010, 01:56 AM

http://www.gamepron.com/news/2010/07...on-to-develop/

StarCraft II cost $100 million to develop

Video game production is in a slump, the world’s struggling with the tail-end of the Global Financial Crisis, and Activision Blizzard has spent more than US$100 million developing StarCraft II.

The sequel’s been 12 years coming, and expectations are understandably high, with analysts predicting several million units will be sold this year alone – comfortably padding Activision‘s wallet.

On the surface investing so much into a PC title seems like an odd move – for Activision and most other publishers, console-based retail games have been the cash cow – but this attention-shift is a new trend in the industry as momentum slows. As explained in the Wall Street Journal (subscription link), US game software sales were more than 6% lower in the first five months of 2010, when compared to the same period in 2009 according to NPD. It’s also reported that last year’s June sales were $2.3 billion, significantly higher than this year’s $2.2. (Of course it’s worth noting that NPD don’t bother with pesky things like Xbox Live, PlayStation Network or Steam, although they are looking to measure spending outside the traditional retail channels.)

It looks like StarCraft II, and the impending release of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, will help the PC game segment neatly offset the console game decline, and Bobby Kotick, Activision CEO, may be relying on that. Last month, he described StarCraft as one of the company’s seven “pillars of opportunity” (where each pillar has the potential to deliver operating profit between $500 million and $1 billion over its life span). He went on to explain that:

“There is no shortage of consumers for ‘Starcraft’. For a game that is more than 10 years old, there’s millions of people still playing it.”

…for those playing at home, Blizzard also control three of the other remaining six pillars, with World of Warcraft and Diablo each getting a spot, as well as their secret new MMO project. Bungie‘s unnannounced new IP is also up there, with nobody surprised when Guitar Hero and Call of Duty take out the last two. Analysts have observed that these franchises not only have the potential for strong retail sales, but each of them is a pretty decent opportunity for additional online revenue through microtransactions, downloadable content or monthly subscriptions.

And whatever they’re doing is obviously working – and not necessarily in straight-forward ways. Blizzard President Mike Morhaime has observed that they’re not just attracting old StarCraft fans back to the franchise, but there are a lot of new players in the beta tests who have never played an RTS before but have simply migrated across from World of Warcraft.

July 27th is looming, so I guess we’ll find out soon enough how wisely Activision Blizzard invested their $100 million.

**Deleterious** · 07-19-2010, 01:59 AM

By the way. You can download this now. But you cant play it until the 27th.

Digital Purchasing - Information - Battle.net

**RedRamage** · 07-20-2010, 03:50 PM

Is SC2 going to be an online only kind of game?

**Deleterious** · 07-20-2010, 08:47 PM

Originally Posted by RedRamage

Is SC2 going to be an online only kind of game?

Yeah, you can play it online but it wont have LAN support.

**Greenwit** · 07-26-2010, 02:05 PM

$60. Forget it.

**Greenwit** · 07-27-2010, 06:06 PM

Looks like $60 buys you the Terran race only in the single player campaign. To play the other two races you'll need to buy those separately at a later date. Reading the reviews at Amazon, gamers are understandably furious.

**drownwithyou** · 07-27-2010, 06:33 PM

Originally Posted by Greenwit

Looks like $60 buys you the Terran race only in the single player campaign. To play the other two races you'll need to buy those separately at a later date. Reading the reviews at Amazon, gamers are understandably furious.

SERIOUSLY?

I've been planning on going out to buy this... this is making me reconsider.

Edit: okay I didn't realize you said "campaign." I'm fine with that, I just want to be able to play as all races in a single custom game against the cpu. I went out and got it. Played one mission in the campaign, and one custom game against a cpu on "very easy." Campaign was so so (just the first mission so I bet it gets a lot better) and the cpu was awful. Still remembering things and trying to relearn the game and new units. Pretty fun though.

**qsilvr2531** · 07-29-2010, 01:16 PM

Originally Posted by Greenwit

Looks like $60 buys you the Terran race only in the single player campaign. To play the other two races you'll need to buy those separately at a later date. Reading the reviews at Amazon, gamers are understandably furious.

This has been known for close to a year now, so I don't get why people are furious about it (at least not people that actually bought the game). I am kind of interested to see if they price the next two games at $60 and market them as full games or if they set a price point more like a DLC or expansion.

Multi-player (including single player vs AI) still includes all races and the single player campaign and multi-player experience are distinctly different so far.

**Greenwit** · 07-29-2010, 01:36 PM

Originally Posted by qsilvr2531

This has been known for close to a year now, so I don't get why people are furious about it (at least not people that actually bought the game).

It's simple. They are not as smart and savvy as you.

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

......and, after all, who ever heard of being able to play more than one race in an RTS. Unheard of.

**drownwithyou** · 07-29-2010, 01:38 PM

I'm incredibly bad against other people online.

**Greenwit** · 07-29-2010, 02:30 PM

You can play the other races online. But.....no practice in the solo game. That part doesn't make alot of sense to me.

**drownwithyou** · 07-29-2010, 02:38 PM

You can play as any race you want against AI opponents offline. The first couple games I did were me and AI vs. 2 AI. And I'll probably do a few 1v1 AI today to try to get a grasp of the game better.

**qsilvr2531** · 07-29-2010, 03:37 PM

Originally Posted by Greenwit

You can play the other races online. But.....no practice in the solo game. That part doesn't make alot of sense to me.

The solo game (meaning the campaign) offers little to no practice as the Terran's as well. The Terran campaign includes many units that aren't available in multi-player and isn't designed to help you for online multi-player.

You can play against the computer in multi-player games and use any of the three races you want. That's much better practice for any of the races than playing the campaign is.

**qsilvr2531** · 07-29-2010, 03:46 PM

Originally Posted by Greenwit

It's simple. They are not as smart and savvy as you.

Amazon.com: Customer Reviews: Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty

......and, after all, who ever heard of being able to play more than one race in an RTS. Unheard of.

Or they've been waiting to write a bad review for a year now. Either way, this shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. The lack of LAN play has been well known for a while now as well. That was a much bigger disappointment to me at least.

**whitesox901** · 07-29-2010, 03:54 PM

Originally Posted by Greenwit

Looks like $60 buys you the Terran race only in the single player campaign. To play the other two races you'll need to buy those separately at a later date. Reading the reviews at Amazon, gamers are understandably furious.

Well, I only like being Terran, so go me!

**whitesox901** · 07-31-2010, 05:27 AM

Bought it, love it.

5 stars.

**qsilvr2531** · 08-02-2010, 08:21 AM

Originally Posted by whitesox901

Bought it, love it.

5 stars.

That's my reaction so far. Online play works nice and seems fairly balanced at my level of play (which is not particularly good). The campaign is a nice change up from the multi-player and the mix of old and new units that don't appear in multi-player, as well as the different upgrade paths and story choices gives it more replaability than the original campaigns. It does feature a few protoss missions as well as the terran missions. No zerg missions so far and it looks like I'm about 80% through the campaign.

**RedRamage** · 08-02-2010, 08:56 AM

Originally Posted by qsilvr2531

This has been known for close to a year now, so I don't get why people are furious about it (at least not people that actually bought the game). I am kind of interested to see if they price the next two games at $60 and market them as full games or if they set a price point more like a DLC or expansion.

Wow... glad I heard that before buying. I would've been royally pissed. I haven't heard it at all until just now.

**Shinma** · 08-02-2010, 09:05 AM

Originally Posted by qsilvr2531

This has been known for close to a year now, so I don't get why people are furious about it (at least not people that actually bought the game). I am kind of interested to see if they price the next two games at $60 and market them as full games or if they set a price point more like a DLC or expansion.

Multi-player (including single player vs AI) still includes all races and the single player campaign and multi-player experience are distinctly different so far.

They will be full priced, or close to it. Its Blizzard.

**Fool Inc.** · 08-02-2010, 09:19 AM

Originally Posted by Shinma

They will be full priced, or close to it. Its Blizzard.

I'd more say that it's Activision than Blizzard, but that's just me. IMO, the two expansions should be priced at $30 each since neither mission would have multi-player attached to it like the Terran storyline does.

**qsilvr2531** · 08-02-2010, 09:39 AM

Originally Posted by Fool Inc.

I'd more say that it's Activision than Blizzard, but that's just me. IMO, the two expansions should be priced at $30 each since neither mission would have multi-player attached to it like the Terran storyline does.

They will likely expand the number of units available in multi-player, similar to the way Brood war added units. Id' still expect a price point in the $30-$40 range though, as both Brood War and Frozen Throne (for WC3) had lower price points than their base games.

**Greenwit** · 08-02-2010, 02:28 PM

Crunchgear just came out with this.......

Is StarCraft II Killing Video Cards, Or Is It Merely A Harbinger Of Bigger Problems?

......so, you SC2'ers.....blow out the innards of your rig with compressed air if you haven't done so lately.

Would be interesting so see some GPU temps during the sequences mentioned in the article.

**RedRamage** · 08-02-2010, 02:45 PM

I did hear something about that... there is supposedly a quick fix where you can edit a file to put in a max frame rate refresh.

**qsilvr2531** · 08-02-2010, 02:54 PM

Originally Posted by RedRamage

I did hear something about that... there is supposedly a quick fix where you can edit a file to put in a max frame rate refresh.

Yep, the fix is listed in the article. I've noticed some weird performance issues with my comp since I started playing SC2. I'll have to put that fix in and see if it clears things up.

**drownwithyou** · 08-02-2010, 02:54 PM

Originally Posted by RedRamage

I did hear something about that... there is supposedly a quick fix where you can edit a file to put in a max frame rate refresh.

That was cited in the article if anyone is wondering.

If anybody wants to add me, my email for battle.net is refused (at) gmail.com

**PuNk42AE** · 08-02-2010, 06:42 PM

Sounds like what happened to me when I put C&C4 on my computer, after 1 mission I fried my Vid card.

**Fool Inc.** · 08-03-2010, 02:22 PM

That's for the heads up. I would have been pissed if my brand new computer's GPU got fried.

**Greenwit** · 08-04-2010, 10:23 AM

I dumped a few older console games at Gamestop to pick this up.....wasn't gonna pay $60 for it and ended up paying $25.

Anway, I have a GPU temp gadget on my desktop....don't know how accurate it is but it does seem to swing from about 36C at idle to 82C, which is the highest I've seen it (I think after playing some Borderlands). I ran a cutscene in the catina and one other place for about 10 minutes and checked my temps and it only got up to 68C (and the fan stayed pretty quiet). Which is warm but not stressing my ATI 5870 all that much. I have a big case with lots of open space so I guess that helps alot.