OFFICIAL OO STARCRAFT II RELEASE THREAD OMG

[Zaxxon]

So my specs:

Athlon 64 2.0 GHz (dual-core)
4 GB RAM
Radeon X1300/1550 256 MB RAM

This gave me recommended settings of Low pretty much everywhere. I think my big limiter here is the vid and am considering a cheap upgrade (in the < $100 range--my desktop won't handle a big card anyway--only low-profile PCIX). Do you fine folks think that getting something in the 512 MB range will help significantly, or will the low-end proc still hold me back?

[J.D.]

So my specs:

Athlon 64 2.0 GHz (dual-core)
4 GB RAM
Radeon X1300/1550 256 MB RAM

This gave me recommended settings of Low pretty much everywhere. I think my big limiter here is the vid and am considering a cheap upgrade (in the < $100 range--my desktop won't handle a big card anyway--only low-profile PCIX). Do you fine folks think that getting something in the 512 MB range will help significantly, or will the low-end proc still hold me back?

My card is 512MB and the rest of my specs are much less than yours and I am getting Medium as my recommended settings. So my guess is that getting a card in the 512 MB range will help you quite a bit.

[Enough]

So my specs:

Athlon 64 2.0 GHz (dual-core)
4 GB RAM
Radeon X1300/1550 256 MB RAM

This gave me recommended settings of Low pretty much everywhere. I think my big limiter here is the vid and am considering a cheap upgrade (in the < $100 range--my desktop won't handle a big card anyway--only low-profile PCIX). Do you fine folks think that getting something in the 512 MB range will help significantly, or will the low-end proc still hold me back?

I did notice that the texture quality is governed by how large your GPU memory is. If you could swing 1024 that would give you Ultra settings, but who knows with the CPU if ultra would be playable. Hopefully someone here has a similar vintage CPU but a nicer GPU that can let us know how well it plays.

Edit, well I type too slow, see above.

[J.D.]

I'm not sure how a Athlon 64 2.0 GHz (dual-core) compares to a P4 3.0 Ghz, but Zax has 4x as much RAM as I do. So if his processor is comparable to mine and he upgrades his card to at least 512MB he should be laughing considering all the RAM he has.

[Zaxxon]

I've always been a RAM whore.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I'm running WinXP on:

E8400 @ 3.0 GHz
2.0 GB of RAM and
ATI HD 4870 w/ 512 MB

and I'm pretty sure it defaulted all my video settings to Ultra. While I'm sure getting more GPU RAM isn't going to hurt, getting a card with fast(er) RAM is probably going to be better than just going to 1024. The game box really wants you to have a 2.4 GHz dual core Intel processor, but I don't know how that compares to what you have.

[Peacedog]

Given that most people don't complete the mission's core goals, I'm ok with it.

Of course people complete the mission's core goals. It's impossible to advance in the campaign without doing that.

[Zaxxon]

Given that most people don't complete the mission's core goals, I'm ok with it.

Of course people complete the mission's core goals. It's impossible to advance in the campaign without doing that.

Right, and most people don't complete the campaign. In any game.

[SlapBone]

So my specs:

Athlon 64 2.0 GHz (dual-core)
4 GB RAM
Radeon X1300/1550 256 MB RAM

This gave me recommended settings of Low pretty much everywhere. I think my big limiter here is the vid and am considering a cheap upgrade (in the < $100 range--my desktop won't handle a big card anyway--only low-profile PCIX). Do you fine folks think that getting something in the 512 MB range will help significantly, or will the low-end proc still hold me back?

My son is running a standard 512mb 8900 GT, and his settings all defaulted to high (and it runs well). The specs are otherwise same as yours except he only has 2gb of ram. The 8900 GT is not an expensive card. I think I picked it up for around 80 bucks. It's a low profile card as well.

[Smoove_B]

In looking at the achievements, I suspect they were put in for the same reason some appear to exist on the Xbox360 -- simple data points that let the developer/publisher know how many people get to [Point X] in the game. I have no doubts they're getting all that data back at HQ and compiling it for future use.

[Peacedog]

Right, and most people don't complete the campaign. In any game.

That probably doesn't apply to StarCraft 2. I'll wager a far larger number of people play through Blizzard single player games, relative to their genres, and relative to sales of the games in question. Also, do you really think achievements - particularly this lame subset - are going to pull someone into a campaign if the story/gameplay mechanics don't? What group of people is being targeted by this? What group of gamers are you trying to argue exists here? There are certainly going to be gamers, maybe not hobbyists, who are new to Blizzard (or relatively new), who decide to pick up this game because it's Blizzard. But they're unlikely to be in it for the achievements, I think. I doubt the guys who only care about multi are going to care because of achievements (even the good ones).

The concept of easy achievements (mixed in with others) makes sense. Killing 5 marines with Raynor in the opening mission is a fine achievement (and a reasonable example of "intermediate" in context). "You completed 5 missions!" is ok (I'm not wild about that sort of thing, mind). "Beat the mission on a harder difficulty" is even pretty good. "Do this thing you already had to do" is not really much of an achievement. And I fail to see how that type of achievement is going to garner significant interest in the campaign from people who already didn't care about the campaign.

[xwraith]

I've run into a nasty bug in SC2. The single player and tutorial missions will lock up and crash the whole machine.
The solution that has worked for me so far is to set the animated portraits to 2d which kinda sucks, but at least I can play now...

Update:
It looks like this is related to having a Nvidia 8800GT. There is a rather large thread on the blizzard forums here detailing the issue. Hopefully this will get fixed asap.

[Zaxxon]

Amazon has some nice-looking small form-factor 512 MB and 1 GB cards for < $50. I sure wish vidcard manufacturers wouldn't intentionally obfuscate what's what, though. 1 GB DDR2 vs 512 MB DDR3, etc. Here are a couple that look like they might work; thoughts?

Radeon HD 5450 1 GB DDR2
Radeon HD 4550 512 MB DDR3

Hopefully this will end my thread derail; thanks for putting up with it!

[Vorret]

Right, and most people don't complete the campaign. In any game.

That probably doesn't apply to StarCraft 2. I'll wager a far larger number of people play through Blizzard single player games, relative to their genres, and relative to sales of the games in question. Also, do you really think achievements - particularly this lame subset - are going to pull someone into a campaign if the story/gameplay mechanics don't? What group of people is being targeted by this? What group of gamers are you trying to argue exists here? There are certainly going to be gamers, maybe not hobbyists, who are new to Blizzard (or relatively new), who decide to pick up this game because it's Blizzard. But they're unlikely to be in it for the achievements, I think. I doubt the guys who only care about multi are going to care because of achievements (even the good ones).

The concept of easy achievements (mixed in with others) makes sense. Killing 5 marines with Raynor in the opening mission is a fine achievement (and a reasonable example of "intermediate" in context). "You completed 5 missions!" is ok (I'm not wild about that sort of thing, mind). "Beat the mission on a harder difficulty" is even pretty good. "Do this thing you already had to do" is not really much of an achievement. And I fail to see how that type of achievement is going to garner significant interest in the campaign from people who already didn't care about the campaign.

I agree that simply "completing the mission" is a kinda lame acheivement.
Completing the campaing would be a different thing.

I don't really care for acheivement, nor do I care about them in WoW though some of them ARE kinda cool and trying to get them can be interesting and can also change the pace of the game.

[Chaz]

So it turns out that if I were to run to Best Buy and purchase this, that purchase would put me over the Gamer's Club point limit for a $10 gift certificate. That's kind of like finding a good deal on the game, right? Right?

Urge to resist... falling...

That was part of my reasoning. Also, they were offering a bonus 500 RZ points for pre-ordering, which equals another $10 gift cert. So together, BB's giving me $20 back for buying there. Unusual, but this worked out better than buying from Amazon, even when factoring in tax and having to go to the store.

[Zaxxon]

Right, and most people don't complete the campaign. In any game.

That probably doesn't apply to StarCraft 2.

It most definitely applies--in fact I'm fairly certain a much higher percentage of SC players never even touch the campaign compared to most RTS games' players. Take, for example, the entire country of S Korea. How many RTSs are purchased for a planned 10-year competitive landscape? I do agree with you that this sort of achievement isn't likely to pull folks in that weren't going to complete the campaign anyway.

I'll wager a far larger number of people play through Blizzard single player games, relative to their genres, and relative to sales of the games in question.

I'll take that wager.

What group of people is being targeted by this?

I think Smoove is probably right--the developers. Look, I'm not trying to say that these achievements are awesome. I'm just not offended by their inclusion, and do get a very small amount of enjoyment out of ticking them off.

[Enough]

Amazon has some nice-looking small form-factor 512 MB and 1 GB cards for < $50. I sure wish vidcard manufacturers wouldn't intentionally obfuscate what's what, though. 1 GB DDR2 vs 512 MB DDR3, etc. Here are a couple that look like they might work; thoughts?

Radeon HD 5450 1 GB DDR2
Radeon HD 4550 512 MB DDR3

Hopefully this will end my thread derail; thanks for putting up with it!

You might find this thread helpful.

[J.D.]

Amazon has some nice-looking small form-factor 512 MB and 1 GB cards for < $50. I sure wish vidcard manufacturers wouldn't intentionally obfuscate what's what, though. 1 GB DDR2 vs 512 MB DDR3, etc. Here are a couple that look like they might work; thoughts?

Radeon HD 5450 1 GB DDR2
Radeon HD 4550 512 MB DDR3

Hopefully this will end my thread derail; thanks for putting up with it!

I know how you feel. I tried looking up hardware upgrades last weekend. Five years ago when I built my current rig I went online and picked out my components in about an hour. This time I went cross-eyed in 20 minutes and had no idea where to begin.

[Butterknife]

I've figured out the RealID thing:

If you add a friend by their email address, it displays their real name when they are offline, and their real name + nickname when they are online.
If you add a friend by character name + character code, it displays only their character name - no real name!

That being said, here is my Battle.net information. Anybody who reads this thread is free to add me, but don't expect me to cover your butt in a cooperative game! You cover mine!

Character Name: Butterknife
Character Code: 771

[Peacedog]

It most definitely applies--in fact I'm fairly certain a much higher percentage of SC players never even touch the campaign compared to most RTS games' players. Take, for example, the entire country of S Korea. How many RTSs are purchased for a planned 10-year competitive landscape? I do agree with you that this sort of achievement isn't likely to pull folks in that weren't going to complete the campaign anyway. [/qote]

Yes, I am aware of south Korea. The presence of South Korea doesn't change the fact that millions of people are going to buy and complete the SC2 campaign, just like in SC1. It will be many more than complete the campaigns in DoW, DoW2, Company of Heroes, and whichever Command and Conquer we're on. I take back the percentage thing below, (though I don't see it as being clear cut, Korea notwithstandiong). That said. . .

I'll take that wager.

Do you really want to argue many more people won't play through the SC2 campaign? It's going to be an order of magnitude in several cases. There may be statistics for this sort of thing floating about that I haven't seen. I do know that Sc2 is going to do crazy sales, probably 10M+ worldwide, and that no other RTS has approached that.

I think Smoove is probably right--the developers. Look, I'm not trying to say that these achievements are awesome. I'm just not offended by their inclusion, and do get a very small amount of enjoyment out of ticking them off.

First the achievements were going to get people to play the campaign, but now the achievements are for the developers.

Ok then.

[Zaxxon]

First the achievements were going to get people to play the campaign, but now the achievements are for the developers.

Ok then.

The addition of achievements and the upgraded inter-mission stuff-to-do are nice improvements.

'Nice improvements' != 'going to get people to play the campaign.'

Enough, thanks for the linkage.

[Vorret]

I've figured out the RealID thing:

If you add a friend by their email address, it displays their real name when they are offline, and their real name + nickname when they are online.
If you add a friend by character name + character code, it displays only their character name - no real name!

That being said, here is my Battle.net information. Anybody who reads this thread is free to add me, but don't expect me to cover your butt in a cooperative game! You cover mine!

Character Name: Butterknife
Character Code: 771

Is the Character code needed?
Anyway, my b.net name is Vorret.
I should be able to cover your butt after a few games

[Butterknife]

I've figured out the RealID thing:

If you add a friend by their email address, it displays their real name when they are offline, and their real name + nickname when they are online.
If you add a friend by character name + character code, it displays only their character name - no real name!

That being said, here is my Battle.net information. Anybody who reads this thread is free to add me, but don't expect me to cover your butt in a cooperative game! You cover mine!

Character Name: Butterknife
Character Code: 771

Is the Character code needed?
Anyway, my b.net name is Vorret.
I should be able to cover your butt after a few games

Yes, the character code is required. I assume it is to distinguish all of the other Butterknifes out there from one another.

[Vorret]

Ahh so the nickname isn't unique.
We should make a clan or something... like [OO] , they probably (wild guess) have some interesting stuff set up for that.

[Chaz]

I think the character code is needed. I imagine that they're not enforcing uniqueness in character names, but differentiating people with the same name via the code? If so, then there could be 999 people with identical names.

I think the RealID thing also lets you retain a friend relationship across other b.net games. So conceivably, if everyone's RealID buds, we could avoid this process for Diablo 3. Of course, the problem is that we know each other by forum tags here, so a list of actual names would do me less good.

[rshetts2]

for those looking to uphrade the old vid card, make sure your current power supply is capable of handling your new card..... Not that I'd know from experience or anything

[Grey Fox]

Don't you select missions in the Starcraft 2 campaign? The gameplay video is going on about the choices you make etc, so if you can skip missions it makes sense you are awarded an achievement for them all.

[Zaxxon]

Don't you select missions in the Starcraft 2 campaign? The gameplay video is going on about the choices you make etc, so if you can skip missions it makes sense you are awarded an achievement for them all.

Yeah, not all of them are mandatory, so this makes sense. Didn't even think of that .

[Vorret]

for those looking to uphrade the old vid card, make sure your current power supply is capable of handling your new card..... Not that I'd know from experience or anything

lol
A few (many) years ago I decided to try and build a PC Myself... I wasn't very knowledgable back then and didn't know there was specific socket...

So I ended up with an Intel socket to fit my Barton 2500 CPU.... didn't work really well

[rshetts2]

for those looking to uphrade the old vid card, make sure your current power supply is capable of handling your new card..... Not that I'd know from experience or anything

[hepcat]

for those looking to uphrade the old vid card, make sure your current power supply is capable of handling your new card..... Not that I'd know from experience or anything

yep...upgraded to a PNY 470 only to find that when playing a game that put the card to the test (Metro 2033 and Crysis: Warhead in this instance), my 550 wasn't cutting it and my computer would just shut down. Happened twice before I threw in the towel.

Then I bought a Corsair 750 psu and installed it...unfortunately, somewhere along the install path, I must have screwed something up and my computer won't boot now (powers up, but no video).

So, as it turns out, i got in line for a midnight release for a game I can't play because I busted my computer.

I'm shopping for mobos and processors today, though.

on the bright side, i can get a hell of a combo that beats me old e6600 dirt cheap these days.

[craterus]

looking forward to gameplay reviews... but I probably will wait until I do a full computer upgrade before i purchase it. Even if I didn't have hardware concerns with my computer, i figure it will be worth waiting until there is a package deal on the various releases they plan to do with this series (this and the civ 5 game are both games I would have bought on release day back in the 90's and early 00's... but in today's world they likely will be on sale for 50% off in 6 months)

congrats to those that got it - hope it is a fun game

[hepcat]

Before I blew my machine up, I was playing it on an E6600 with an 8800gt and it was running maxed out with no problems whatsoever. It really is system friendlier than i thought it would be.

[Rowdy]

Blizzard rarely discounts their games, at least not until the next iteration in the series is out. I wouldn't expect to see SC2 on sale for at least a year or two.

[GreenGoo]

Blizzard rarely discounts their games, at least not until the next iteration in the series is out. I wouldn't expect to see SC2 on sale for at least a year or two.

I'm in no rush.

[Archinerd]

Blizzard rarely discounts their games, at least not until the next iteration in the series is out. I wouldn't expect to see SC2 on sale for at least a year or two.

I'm willing to wait 12%-17% longer for a 50% discount.

[Semaj]

After installing spent the better part of the day whipping through the campaign mode.

As someone said its starcraft at its core. so if you played and liked the original you'll enjoy this one.

Blizzard actually does a soid job with the storyline, which I am almost done with, the cgi and making you enjoy the campaign trying to find every little thing. I will probably have to redo the campaign on hard after this (Hard is just that, I know the units how to expand like a mofo and this game still maims me on hard) to get a bunch of the achievements I am missing.

The research options you get for finishing a bunch of the bonus missions makes the bonus missions worth it. Essentially you get 2 trees of reseatch, a protoss and a zerg. At every 5 research points you get the chance to pick up 1 of 2 bonuses. For instance one choice is either instant supply depots or automated refineries with extra 25% vespine gas production. I took instant supply depots because I tend to make about 30-40 of those friggin worker units.

I havent yet got to delve into online play, I should probably hit it sometime tonight or tomorrow depending on how much starcraft I can get in and how much I hate the thought of putting 6 hours in at the poker tables. Which means I will be playing shortly...

[Doomboy]

Well, at least I got to the Agria rescue mission before Normal difficulty became too hectic for me. I hope Casual difficulty is somewhat fun.

I think I noticed when I played a skirmish vs. AI that there was a way to select the pacing of skirmish games. Hopefully that translates into more than units just moving and shooting faster or slower.

So far I like it more than any other Blizzard game I have played. Just not too good at their style of RTS and never have been. At least this time they included a difficulty level that I can play at hopefully.

Spoiler:

Probably would have been better if the stupid colonists had waited until my defenses were ready before they decided to start making trips to the spaceport. I mean, if ya'll were getting slaughtered before I showed up and need my help, maybe you should either provide more money for me to build marines or wait for me to get up to speed, no?

[msduncan]

Wow.

This game is really, really good.

[Chaz]

Do we have a list of in-game IDs for being in-game budz? Do we need one?