Impressions?

[Undeadprotoss]

This thread is just for first impressions regarding the remaster and especially the campaign, for me:

1. Game itself feels better than I expected, which is great.
2. Remastered campaign portraits don't seem to sync up with the dialogue.
3. I don't really like the new campaign holograms/statues/whatever, I much prefer the old ones. Especially for the vanilla Protoss.
4. I hate how they removed the text that came with all those little images you saw when you hovered your mouse over an option in the menu

What do you guys think?

[Gradius]

-I agree. Graphics are nice obviously, but there's a lot of things that have too much specularity on them. *cough zerg briefing room
-Haven't gotten used to moving around in this. I got a decent rig but my mouse feels laggy. Disabling mouse sensitivity actually helps a lot.
-Hated the hydralisk at first, but like Robear says, it's based on the sprite so I've warmed up to it.
-Still hate the success kid zealot.
-Ability to zoom is just great.
-Why is my real time lighting disabled? GTX 980 doesn't have 2 gigs of vram?
-Cinematics look better, but still not as good as the cinematics DVD.
-Same shitty game as in 1998. ;)

[TheEconomist]

Ranking only for 1v1 games? Disappointing. Very disappointing.

And, oh my fucking god, I forgot how insanely clunky this game was. Not that that's a bad thing, but, damn, I need to get my control back up.


Splash screen is shit. Features are shit. Barebones as shit. Basically, the same game as in 1998, with some shitty replaced artwork here and there, but a more compatible client.

Was excited about match making, but, at the moment, it's pretty much irrelevant.

[sandwich_bird]

Disappointed.

-No 2s,3s,4s matchmaking
-Tried playing a couple of custom games, everyone dropped out without the "wait to reconnect" screen. Can't fix the net code after all these years?
-No ability to zoom out in custom games.
-Splash screens are meh
-No party system(hopefully that will come with 2s3s4s)

+prettier in-game graphics
+wide screen
+cheap price
+kinda cool to press f5

An unfinished product(somehow). At least it's Blizzard so I'm hopeful they'll fix their stuff. But right now, I have no interest in MP. Will redo the campaign though.

[Visions of Khas]

I'm not even considering touching this. The graphical update is nice, but I've played this game so many times. Though I'll keep an eye on media and the comic interludes.

[TheEconomist]

Disappointed.

-No 2s,3s,4s matchmaking

The entire fucking reason I bought the game, not even present.

I never had a hard time finding a decent 1v1 opponent, getting a decent team game going that wasn't ruined by atleast one noob was damn near impossible.


In addition, playing some more melee matches in SCR has really hit home just how much of am improvement SC2 was in many important, key areas of MP. You can debate all you want about the intensity of SCBW vs SC2 eSports, but in the actual playing of the game, SC2 is a MASSSSIVE IMPROVEMENT.

Also, again, FUCK THAT AI

Eb7o1ArBHg8

[KaiserStratosTygo]

-Keep getting weird lag spikes every 20 seconds never had this problem before and it only happens when i'm logged in (but I can't log out because the stupid fucking game grays out all the shit I paid for)


Until that shit gets fixed my opinion on this remaster is not very high right now since its kind of unplayable.

[NikoMyCousin]

The lag and the portraits in briefing rooms are so pedestrian that I wouldn't expect it from a company like Blizzard who consistently pushes quality

Everything else is ace though, except for replacing Stukov with DuGalle in the Brood War campaign select screen.

[TheEconomist]

I've had the remaster lockup three times during startup, out of like eight attempts. I think I figured out the reason, but, still, I don't remember SCBW ever locking up like that.

[sandwich_bird]

Also, again, FUCK THAT AI

Eb7o1ArBHg8

"The shit AI is a featureee!!!!!" -Pro scene

Such a crap argument. In a competitive game, you want as little randomness as possible so that chance doesn't affect the outcome; only skills. If the AI randomly misbehave well... I'm fine with the other limitations though.

[TheEconomist]

Yep, second game I was defending off some Dark Templar with Mines. Mines decided to take the dumb fuck way around to the target which let the Dark Templar kill more marines than it should have.

[KaiserStratosTygo]

"The shit AI is a featureee!!!!!" -Pro scene

Such a crap argument. In a competitive game, you want as little randomness as possible so that chance doesn't affect the outcome; only skills. If the AI randomly misbehave well... I'm fine with the other limitations though.

Maybe? but its not something you can just pinpoint with ease and change without effecting something else, the argument that pros use is usually THAT and I agree with them.

[sandwich_bird]

Maybe? but its not something you can just pinpoint with ease and change without effecting something else, the argument that pros use is usually THAT and I agree with them.

Honestly, that argument is for no player to make. They don't know what the code looks like. They don't know what the causes of those bugs are. Chances are, they don't know crap about software development. Changing one thing doesn't necessarily break everything else. Bug fixing is not like playing Jenga. If you remove a block and the tower collapse, nothing stops you from rewinding time and pulling another block... or taping the whole thing with duct tape :)

[TheEconomist]

They fixed Valkyries. Saw Valkyries used in the first pro game ever the during the launch event. Why not fix Reavers at least?

[Gradius]

I kinda like the randomness. Is golf imbalanced because each player doesn't get a perfect 5 mph wind from the northeast at all times?

[TheEconomist]

Can't do anything about wind, and wind is more or less constant throughout the length of a game. Plus, the challenge is the correct for interference such as wind and the professionals spend their lives building intuition on these things. Not much you can like that with Reavers.

Oh, and there's no human opponent in golf, only competitors.

Investing the expense and risking the consequences of going a Reaver Drop and then having your one chance to equalize that blown due to some random, non-exploding scarabs is retarded. How many of us have been scarabs go directly towards Workers only to hover in front of them and not explode?

[sandwich_bird]

In this case, if we compare to golf, a better analogy would be if your club would occasionally randomly slap you in the face and walk away when you try to swing it. The problem with these random bugs is that they aren't meant to be.

Personally, I love randomness in non-competitive games. In competitive games, I only like it when it's structured in such a fashion that it effects everyone equally and only changes the rules without affecting the chances of an action producing the desired outcome(eg: imagine if a map had random weather effects that alter the terrain symmetrically). Even then, I'm hesitant to say I'd like it to be honest.

[Robear]

Back to the first page, they have announced (https://us.battle.net/forums/en/starcraft/topic/20758537891) that they will be adding matchmaking for larger groups than just 1v1


"Will there be 2v2 or larger matchmaking?
Yes. Timeline is dependent on getting current implementation of 1s stable and confidence in the rating system"

[TheEconomist]

Of course I know it's coming, it's just that, I'm not seeing what the improvement is over SCBW and why this is even released yet.

[KaiserStratosTygo]

Honestly, that argument is for no player to make. They don't know what the code looks like. They don't know what the causes of those bugs are. Chances are, they don't know crap about software development. Changing one thing doesn't necessarily break everything else. Bug fixing is not like playing Jenga. If you remove a block and the tower collapse, nothing stops you from rewinding time and pulling another block... or taping the whole thing with duct tape :)

Sure we can, since a lot of us have read articles on how blizzard tried to make their pathing work. it's not like jenga sure, but its not like a walk through the park either, you mess with the pathing you're almost certainly going to screw something else up BECAUSE the pathing system is scrapped together with spit, duck tape and paper clips.

There's no way for them to test literally every outcome in-house which means its going to fall on the players when the devs THINK they've fixed the problem. And I especially don't trust them seeing the constant madness that's happening in SC2's game design taking 4 years to remove shitty hero units and stuff like that.

[The_Blade]

Like the Glaive Wurm going bottom right IIRC

[Visions of Khas]

Am I the only one who doesn't understand how Hydralisks shoot their spines, even now after the updated graphics?

[Gradius]

Am I the only one who doesn't understand how Hydralisks shoot their spines, even now after the updated graphics?
*raises hand

[Visions of Khas]

Okay, this is the only thing I can figure out, given the anatomy and sprite we have to work with:

http://i.imgur.com/jLIR4qI.jpg

The distal edge of the crest erects, expanding a pouch hidden behind the head that contains the spines. The grooves you see house the actual spines, or act as rifling for them.

EDIT I'd love to see Robear create an animation where a Hydra flaps these things and flies away.

[Robear]

^That's definitely correct. The flaps/pouches definitely unfold from between the frill carapace and the back carapace, same as they did in the original sprite.

http://i.imgur.com/bQcOcsQ.png

I'm hoping someone rips some full-resolution spritesheets from the remaster so that I can lay them out or animate them as gifs in slow motion or whatever.

And then also if you want to see what my SC2 version of the original hydralisk looked like in its firing pose, here are a couple screengrabs. The pouches are a bit flatter (and probably more plausibly foldable) in the Remaster than in mine.

http://i.imgur.com/hM93Mqw.png
http://i.imgur.com/sdPWNJ3.png