Starcraft 2 - Read Post #2 for a useful beginner guide

[you2]

How long is the single player portion ? 5 hrs? 10 hrs? 50 hrs ?

 

[Molondo]

Been playing on brutal, done aobout six missions i think. Had to restart 2 times on 2 different missions. Brutal is the only way to go. very fun!

 

[TecHNooB]

my copy is in a warehouse 40 minutes away. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFffff-

 

[JackSpadesSI]

Does anyone else get frequent stutters in the game's audio? My graphics are smooth and the game plays without a hitch, but the audio keeps stuttering. It didn't even help when I turned the audio quality down to low.

I'm using onboard audio, BTW (but this isn't an issue in any other game). The drivers are up-to-date.

EDIT: I'm not sure what I did, but this hasn't happened since the first day. I'm glad it stopped, too, because the stutter was getting really annoying!

 

[KMFJD]

Does anyone else get frequent stutters in the game's audio? My graphics are smooth and the game plays without a hitch, but the audio keeps stuttering. It didn't even help when I turned the audio quality down to low.

I'm using onboard audio, BTW (but this isn't an issue in any other game). The drivers are up-to-date.

I've had the game completely stop during multiplayer...chat still worked fine but the game seemed to have de-synched, anyone else getting that?

 

[KMFJD]

Apparently the concept of a preorder means entirely something different to gamestop than it does to me.

Me: Hi, I'm here to pick up Starcraft 2. I preordered months ago.
GS: Did you pay in full?
Me: I'm about to right now.
GS: Sorry, we dont have enough to go around.
Me: But you'd have one if I paid already?
GS: We only got 30 out of the 50 we were supposed to get.
Me: How about I pay you now, and you give me one of the 30 you obviously still have.
GS: I'm sorry sir, we don't have enough to go around. Its hard to get on launch day. Some people preordered just days ago, we didnt get enough.
Me: Isnt that why I preordered months ago? The guy said put down 5 bucks, pick it up launch day. It's launch day. I have money with me. I'm ready to give it to you. Can I have SC2, now, please?
GS: No.

Fuck you, Gamestop. Theyre supposed to have it today, but never, never again.

I love the highlighted excuse...then I walk to a best buy/wallmart/future shop and see 100 copies...

 

[Schfifty Five]

Apparently the concept of a preorder means entirely something different to gamestop than it does to me.

Me: Hi, I'm here to pick up Starcraft 2. I preordered months ago.
GS: Did you pay in full?
Me: I'm about to right now.
GS: Sorry, we dont have enough to go around.
Me: But you'd have one if I paid already?
GS: We only got 30 out of the 50 we were supposed to get.
Me: How about I pay you now, and you give me one of the 30 you obviously still have.
GS: I'm sorry sir, we don't have enough to go around. Its hard to get on launch day. Some people preordered just days ago, we didnt get enough.
Me: Isnt that why I preordered months ago? The guy said put down 5 bucks, pick it up launch day. It's launch day. I have money with me. I'm ready to give it to you. Can I have SC2, now, please?
GS: No.

Fuck you, Gamestop. Theyre supposed to have it today, but never, never again.

To me, GS is pretty much garbage and uses shady tactics. I pre-ordered a gamecube game years ago b/c GS offered some extra exclusive art-book and when I went to go pick it up, I got the game, but got pretty much the same BS about the extra art book. Fuck them. The only reason I went to buy that game from them is due to the exclusive extras.

I also hate how they usually open up every game (even new sealed ones) and keep the disc separate from the box. It just seems so shady when you want to buy a new game and they go grab an empty box and find the disc in some drawer. Of course the game is probably still playable and in new condition, but if I'm forking over $60+, I don't want to feel like the game is a used copy when the wrapping/seals are all gone already.

Lastly, I tried to use a 25% of coupon for SC2 CE preorder from their website. My cart would show the full 25% discount, but when I got to the final page where it says to submit order, the discount changed to like 12% or something like that. Maybe it was a glitch, maybe not, all I know is that it looks like more shady tactics by GS.

I usually now only order from Amazon for a few reasons: Free release date delivery, no tax, usually cheaper by a little or includes a $10/$20 GC for future games.

As for SC2 itself, so far I am loving the campaign. I love all the little interactive things you can do on the bridge, catina, lab, etc. Graphics are what I expected since I played beta, and the extra units that you can use are a nice surprise. And ACHIEVEMENTS!!! Makes me feel like I fully completed a mission when I unlock all 3 achievements haha.

 

[taltamir]

Been playing on brutal, done aobout six missions i think. Had to restart 2 times on 2 different missions. Brutal is the only way to go. very fun!

how the hell are you playing the game? the DRM servers are down and I can't log in! Its driving me nuts, I bought the game yesterday and I still can't authenticate it for offline play!

 

[Glitchny]

I disagree with everything in this post.

Things get pretty intense, especially on brutal. The graphrics are great. Units are SO easy to distinguish, it almost takes no time at all. Sound is good, writing is good too (very terran)0. Voice acting is perfect.

This guy is craaaazy

Yea I'm in agreement here. Everything in the SP has been awesome IMO. I had no idea that they had changed the mission structure so much (purposefully avoided SC2 news) and it is great. I always go watch the news after a mission and talk to everyone, then spend half my time trying to figure out which research/upgrades I want.

I'm playing on hard now and I've only had to restart once on "Welcome to the Jungle" due to me jumping the gun and pissing off the Protoss right at the beginning.

I can't really speak on the graphics other than I am AMAZED it runs on my shitty little laptop with only 1gig of ram.

how the hell are you playing the game? the DRM servers are down and I can't log in! Its driving me nuts, I bought the game yesterday and I still can't authenticate it for offline play!

There is a crack out there that will enable offline play, well Campaign play only. I had to use it while blizzard fixed my battle.net account (phone got screwed up and I lost my mobile authenticator).

 

[taltamir]

well Campaign play only

the campaign is the only thing I CARE to play.

 

[plion]

dunno if this has been posted but im so excited I have to post it
from twitter
"CatalystMaker
On vacation - but just got an email saying that Starcraft 2 AA is almost ready. Just getting tested now. Hotfix soon."

 

[Bryf50]

how the hell are you playing the game? the DRM servers are down and I can't log in! Its driving me nuts, I bought the game yesterday and I still can't authenticate it for offline play!

I really think you're alone here. I activated mine and many of my friends all activated without a problem.

 

[Anubis]

I also hate how they usually open up every game (even new sealed ones) and keep the disc separate from the box. It just seems so shady when you want to buy a new game and they go grab an empty box and find the disc in some drawer. Of course the game is probably still playable and in new condition, but if I'm forking over $60+, I don't want to feel like the game is a used copy when the wrapping/seals are all gone already.

they don't do that anymore, or at least they don't at the one by my work. i only know because i was in there picking up some PS3 stuff (because walmart across the street didn't have it), the games on the shelf's are just cases but when you bring it up to the counter they open the case and pull out a new game in shrink wrap for you. Was the same with used games

 

[shortylickens]

All right, fuck it. I bought the god damn thing. Despite massive amounts of conflicting reports. And the fact I've been disappointed by every big launch for the past 5 years. And the irritating DRM that Blizzard used to speak out against. I bought it anyway.

For reference: Just like every other game released, Target and Walmart had assloads of copies sitting right there on the shelf. I always feel sorry for you guys who insist on getting screwed over at the game stores.

Alright, installing now. Whoever said the BattleNet bullshit was simple is a fucking idiot. Unless this is the best video game ever made I'm going through way too much hassle. And if this is the future of video games then no one will be getting any more of my business ever again. I am sick of being treated like a criminal when the criminals are allowed to do whatever the hell they want.

Also, I think the install is moving along quite nicely considering its 12 gigs. And my hard drive is only running Ultra DMA 5.

 

[Imported]

I kinda want to switch the difficulty to Hard or Brutal.. I just left it on the default Normal.

 

[ParadoxDenmark]

Been playing on brutal, done aobout six missions i think. Had to restart 2 times on 2 different missions. Brutal is the only way to go. very fun!

I agree. I usually pick the hardest difficulty right away and started on Brutal, but when I figured out just how many ways you can go about approaching every mission (specializing units, research, even pick the order of certain missions) I thought I'd surely play this again, and I want it to be harder the second time around since I'll be much better at the game by then.

So, I restarted on Hard for the first playhrough

 

[shortylickens]

Nevermind. My system froze during the installation.
:hmm:
This does not bode well.

 

[JD50]

So I just beat the AI in skirmish mode but it didn't register in battlenet (towards one of the achievements), has anyone had problems like this? And yes I'm connected to the internet.

Bump.

Has anyone gotten credit towards any of the skirmish mode achievements?

 

[JD50]

All right, fuck it. I bought the god damn thing. Despite massive amounts of conflicting reports. And the fact I've been disappointed by every big launch for the past 5 years. And the irritating DRM that Blizzard used to speak out against. I bought it anyway.

For reference: Just like every other game released, Target and Walmart had assloads of copies sitting right there on the shelf. I always feel sorry for you guys who insist on getting screwed over at the game stores.

Alright, installing now. Whoever said the BattleNet bullshit was simple is a fucking idiot. Unless this is the best video game ever made I'm going through way too much hassle. And if this is the future of video games then no one will be getting any more of my business ever again. I am sick of being treated like a criminal when the criminals are allowed to do whatever the hell they want.

Also, I think the install is moving along quite nicely considering its 12 gigs. And my hard drive is only running Ultra DMA 5.

:thumbsup:

The only time that I go into GS is when my kid wants to go look at games, other than that I avoid the place. Well except for when they have (rare) good sales.

 

[SR1729]

Just like every other game released, Target and Walmart had assloads of copies sitting right there on the shelf. I always feel sorry for you guys who insist on getting screwed over at the game stores.

Yep. The only game I've preordered in recent years is MW2, and I did that from Amazon. Why ppl insist on preordering through a shit place like Gamestop is fucking beyond me. 99.9% of the time you can walk into any retail chain and pick a copy right up off the shelf. In fact, I did that just 20 minutes ago with SC2.

I also hate how they usually open up every game (even new sealed ones) and keep the disc separate from the box. It just seems so shady when you want to buy a new game and they go grab an empty box and find the disc in some drawer. Of course the game is probably still playable and in new condition, but if I'm forking over $60+, I don't want to feel like the game is a used copy when the wrapping/seals are all gone already.

Yep, the store by me still does this shit.

 

[scooterlibby]

I cannot, for the life of me, get into RTS games, though I have tried. My friend has an extra pass though and I will give it a whirl. The hype has definitely made me curious.

 

[Bioapb]

Just got back from ducking out of work briefly to buy my copy. As others have said Target has copies just sitting there. The one I was at had about 10 copies of the regular addition and 4 of the CE. Easy as shooting a zergling, which is what I will be doing tonight

 

[tydas]

I disagree with everything in this post.

Things get pretty intense, especially on brutal. The graphrics are great. Units are SO easy to distinguish, it almost takes no time at all. Sound is good, writing is good too (very terran)0. Voice acting is perfect.

This guy is craaaazy

Totally agree, the game rocks...if you disagree then Bliz has a nice little re-education camp for you to visit.

 

[endervalentine]

If anyone has any guest passes they are willing to part with, I would really like one ... hopefully, sharing my beta key on AT a few weeks back, would help me

 

[Anubis]

I played about a dozen missions and felt a little bit underwhelmed by the single player campaign. Even when I crank up the difficulty, there isn't any intensity felt throughout the game.

My other big disappointment was the presentation of the game. Graphically, I didn't have high expectation, but the game looks worse than older gen games like command & conquer. The units themselves are presented with very little details and are very difficult to differentiate between each others.
The sound effects are also underwhelming. You get very little audio feedback when you are blowing stuff up. The voice acting is even worse with some pretty bad writing overall. I would much rather have a CGI scene between every few missions than dealing with Raynor's corny lines. It just spoils the SP experience.

having played the beta i have to 100% disagree with everything you said