Beta, after the smoke cleared

[RedPineApple]

So I am going to do a slight recap and talk about some of the positives and areas of which I feel need improvement opposed to personal/player adaption.

(Wall of text warning! Please take the proper safety precautions for your eyes beyond this point!)

So I will start off and say that I have claimed my Bro inlaws's account while he is away in Europe for the next 2 weeks. I hope to have my own account by then! Anyway, here is my analysis.

Let me discuss a hot topic that has been thrown around the beta community for some time now. The overall similarity and debatable lack of innovation with SC2. I will state my opinion and then, if others in the community have feed back, please post it.

I feel that one of the things that made Starcraft what it was is its simple-to-learn-hard-to-master concept. There were plenty of turn-based / RTS games that have come and gone through out Blizzard's reign on the RTS market. The same can be said for games like Diablo and Diablo 2. Neither of those two games emphasized on pushing the envelope in terms of contriving elements. What Blizzard has always done best with its games has been amazing execution of the basics. They take a simple bread and butter formula, and turn it into something that captures your heart for many many years.

So enter Starcraft 2..
We have all been checking website after website, and forum after forum following the games announcement. Once I heard Dustin Browder was the lead designer, I immediately checked his credentials to see what projects he had completed in the past. Without insulting the man with my past judgements on his resume, I felt very skeptical at first. After seeing the game grow over the years, and seeing his passion towards the project, I really started respecting him a lot as a Dev. It really appealed to me that Blizzard was taking their time to make this game right.

So now we enter beta...
I can see where people are frustrated with the game in terms of polish. We waited 3 years (Hell 12 to be precise) for Blizzard to really narrow out the quirks and present us with a product that would blow our minds. People have taken up arms over tons of little details that seem to have either been neglected, or half assed so to speak.

And my honest opinion to this is, yes, there are some things that really need to be fixed and quick. But I also believe that we need to fix ourselves a bit as well. We have to accept the fact that this IS Starcraft 2 and we need to let go of SC1 to grasp the good things of the sequel. There really is a lot to behold in SC2 and I have complete faith that Blizzard will adjust the flaky aspects of the game. Im sure they didn't delay the thing for this long only to release it with cheese holes and placeholder quality animations / sounds.

So in closing, give it time and let Blizzard do their thing. Many of their Beta's went through intense artistic and gameplay changes during the process of their beta testing. Lets see how the final product turns out and enjoy the ride!

[Norfindel]

All this wall of text to say "i have faith in Blizzard"? I thinked you would at least say what did you like and what not.

[protoswarrior]

Actually, it's a little more than "I have faith in thee Blizzard", as he is also telling us, the players to suck it up and stop complaining about small details and focus on the major *shit that may be game-breaking (ahem - OP reapers).

[RedPineApple]

Well I actually agree with Norfindel, my wife came home pissed about her work day so I had to cut it short, lol. Fail on my part.

But yeah, I will post more details on beta. I really do think that once SC2 is polished it will exceed most expectations.

[Draco]

There are very positive things and things that are lacking:

Pros-
Graphics
Presentation
Production Values
Fluidity
Metagame

Cons-
Unit Voice Acting/Soundscape
Built-In Micro Delay for a lot of units
Some Units/Abilities need fleshing out

All of which can be fixed by end of beta.

[Wankey]

"Built-In Micro Delay for a lot of units"

wtf is this?

[Draco]

"Built-In Micro Delay for a lot of units"

wtf is this?

Some units have delayed reactions to your clicks. It's intentional, but I feel not very beneficial.

[PosImpos]

"Built-In Micro Delay for a lot of units"

wtf is this?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is my understanding:

Some units can't be microed the way they could in the original SC. For instance, in SC you could hit and run very effectively with Vultures because they had virtually no attack animation. Hellions, on the other hand, pause briefly before attacking, meaning you can't hit and run with them in quite the same way as you could with Vultures. This makes them substantially less attractive as early game units.

I think similar issues may exist with Mutalisks and a couple other units. Basically, the game has improved graphics and attack animations in many regards, but sometimes that affects gameplay. Just requires some tweaking though, to make sure that units aren't made ineffective for competitive play simply because of their animation.

[Nicol Bolas]

For instance, in SC you could hit and run very effectively with Vultures because they had virtually no attack animation.

No, you could do that because of a bug in the engine. Vultures were supposed to stop to shoot like every other unit in SC1. Due to poor implementation, Vultures and certain other units could be made to fire on the move by an arcane combination of user commands.

Hellions, on the other hand, pause briefly before attacking

And Hellions do not pause before attacking; they pause to attack. As in they stop and shoot fire, simultaneously.

This makes them substantially less attractive as early game units.

Oh, BS. A unit that depends on an engine bug to be useful isn't a unit that should exist in the game.

[Aldrius]

Besides that, Hellions are freaking awesome. Especially after their damage upgrade.