Korean Expo Translations and Wrap-Up

[Gradius]

May 21st, 2009, at the Seoul Ap-Gu-Jung, many Korean websites had the chance to test the latest build of StarCraft II. StarCraft: Legacy has finished translating PlayXP and GameMeca StarCraft II reviews.

The following is a sum-up of all the StarCraft II news to emerge from the event:

• PlayXP StarCraft II Screenshots
• GameMeca StarCraft II Screenshots
• GameMeca StarCraft II Impressions
• Fomos StarCraft II Impressions
• PlayXP General Impressions
• GameMeca Protoss Review
• GameMeca Terran Review
• GameMeca Zerg Review

Source:
SC:L StarCraft II Impressions Translations

[Pandonetho]

# Initial population support is 11 for Terrans, 10 for Zerg and Protoss.

Nice, I like this.

Barely ever enough gas (with two geysers).

This sounds bad. It makes it sound as if going 1 gas is not going to be a viable option.

# A high probability of success as an e-sport.

Excellent.

* Resource income/outcome was just right, and starting off with 6 workers made the game progress faster.
* The key points in StarCraft II, such as yellow minerals, are predicted to become sources of nonstop battles

Excellent.

Stalkers don’t do as much damage as Dragoon did in StarCraft, but can attack both ground and air

lol, the Dragoon could attack both ground and air too. But at least the stalker has better pathing and blink.

# Phoenix can attack air and ground, with a powerful air attack (5 Phoenixes beat 3 Carriers).

Woah, woah.
That's quite a big change. I don't know anything about Protoss gameplay though so I'll leave my opninion off on this one.

# Colossus can walk over cliffs, cannot attack air, can destroy buildings easily.

Can destroy buildings easily, nice to hear. Now it can outrange missile turrets with its siege range researched and easily destroy them.

# Archon has high shields, low health, ranged attack, and weakness to melee units.

Um what? Am I reading this wrong? It has a weakness to melee units?

All the stuff about the mothership and carrier sounds boring to me.

Reactor add-on allowed Terran to come close to Zerg unit production speed.

Not exactly sure how I feel about this. I think it's alright though, since the only thing they can match Zerg unit production speed in is marines and it makes sense, since marines are cannon fodder. Terrans still won't be able to match Z production speed in other units like Marauder/Hydralisk or Battlecruiser/Ultralisk.

# The Reapers cliff jumping almost make buying air transport a waste of money.

Not sure where he got this notion from. Is he saying tank drops/marine drops/ghost drops/marauder drops/any combo drop are useless because of the Reaper (I'm aware the Reaper has stim packs)?

# The Thor is able to be used in many occasions.
# The Battlecruisers skills allow for more diverse strategy.

Good to hear on both points.

# When multiple buildings are selected, and you click to start unit production while holding down Tab, then all the selected buildings start making the unit at once.

I can hear it now, the elitists raging over the internet.

Can be upgraded to a Planetary Fortress which has missile launchers on top of it.

Besides me wondering exactly what's changed besides the graphics, I still think the PF is not going to be chosen over the OC.

# You can upgrade Bunker capacity at the Engineering Bay, increasing it from 4 to 6.

Sweet.

# Engineering Bay allows construction of Missile Turrets, but Missile Turrets no longer have detection and can only attack air units.

Sigh, GAY. How do Terrans suddenly lose the technology to make their turrets detect? Effing ridiculous. Did the enemies suddenly learn how to burrow deeper to avoid detection or something so they need the sensor tower or what? Better cloaking technology?

# Thor is about twice as large as an Ultralisk.

I bet it gets owned by an Ultralisk in 1v1. I also suppose that we can throw out past statements about how they kept making the Thor smaller because of pathing and such and such. Now I really wonder how it'd fit into a dropship.

* Siege Mode and attack upgrade for Hellions flamethrower are available at the Armory.

I suppose this makes sense, since if siege mode was still at the Tech Lab one would be able to upgrade siege instantly upon making a factory just by lifting and landing beside a pre-existing tech lab.

# Raven has detect, and can also attack.

Can also attack I see. I wonder if it's going to be just like the Arbiter in this regard.

# Battlecruiser has 3 other abilities besides Yamato Cannon but only one skill can be used at one time.

3 Other abilities beside Yamato cannon? Is this just a typo/mistake or does it now have 4 abilities?

The movement speed of combat units increased drastically and was faster than that of the other races.

Good to hear.

# The health of all the buildings fell compared to Starcraft.

Not sure how I feel about this.

# Zerg had a slight upper hand from early to mid game, but became disadvantaged as the max supply (200) filled up.

Ironic, Zerg just went from god of late game to weak? Also, I'm seeing contradictions in the whole "individual units weakened for more massing power" statement.

Hydralisks anyone? Lurkers? Brood Lords? Ultralisks? Yeah

Banelings can wipe out early game units like Marines and Zerglings with ease, but lose most of their usefulness by the mid game.

Ouch, hopefully this guy is wrong about this and that he's just not using them right mid game.

The Overseer can produce creep around it and can use Spawn Changeling to create a Changeling.

So what does the overlord have now?

# Radars on the map show nearby enemy units as exclamation marks, and only activate when one of your units are near it.

Uh... What?

[Kimera757]

There's unusual info in the translations:

Hydralisks: Back to lair tech. (Boo!)

Overseers: Can drop creep again?

Corruptors: Only need a lair. (Well, finally confirmation on this.)

The phoenix: Can attack ground again? (Could have been a lazy way to refer to Anti-Gravity.)

[KDraconis]

Archon has high shields, low health, ranged attack, and weakness to melee units.

To clarify, the article meant that melee units have a clear advantage against Archons. The only reason they gave was beacause "the Archons could be surrounded".

Battlecruiser has 3 other abilities besides Yamato Cannon but only one skill can be used at one time.

We might have to wait a bit to be sure about this one. It wasn't explained in the article, so it doesn't have a lot of credibility yet.

Radars on the map show nearby enemy units as exclamation marks, and only activate when one of your units are near it.

My guess is that they are referring to Xel'Naga Towers, but since they said "radar" and didn't really clarify, I left it as Radar. But if they are referring to Xel'Naga Towers, then it means the Towers don't get rid of Fog of War anymore, but instead shows units in fog as exclamation marks.

There's unusual info in the translations:

Hydralisks: Back to lair tech. (Boo!)

Overseers: Can drop creep again?

Corruptors: Only need a lair. (Well, finally confirmation on this.)

The phoenix: Can attack ground again? (Could have been a lazy way to refer to Anti-Gravity.)

As for Hydralisks and Corruptors, the article was quite clear that they only needed Lair tech.
They didn't go into depth about the Overseer, but it did say it "drops creep", which could be passive (unlikely) or active.
The article said something about Phoenix ATG attack being weaker than ATA attack, but I'm not sure so don't take my word for it. Just saying that it's a bit uncertain.

[Blazur]

Excellent write-ups. Thanks for the translations.

I'm surprised to read that muta stacking wasn't allowed despite the recent claims in the sc2armory Q&A. Has this already been removed or was the player simply not aware of this ability? Either way I hope it's not present in SC2.

Also...strange to hear Missile Turrets have lost innate detection and need a sensor tower for that. Is this true?

[Norfindel]

To clarify, the article meant that melee units have a clear advantage against Archons. The only reason they gave was beacause "the Archons could be surrounded".

Uhhh... that's actually ridiculous, Archons do splash damage, the last thing you want to do, is try to attack them with melee... Ranged units always worked better against them.

I think that some of this impressions are not quite correct... or the Archon doesn't have enough splash.

[RamiZ]

I think that some of this impressions are not quite correct...

My thoughts exactly...

[n00bonicPlague]

I do find it amusing that many insist on comparing the Stalker with the Dragoon on a 1:1 basis -- as if they were supposed to be copies. What's really happened here is that they've taken the Dragoon and Reaver and have remixed their roles. The Stalker is a half-Dragoon with Blink, the Immortal is a Dragoon + Reaver's anti-armor power, and the Colossus is supposed to be what remains of the Reaver's splash specialty. Though the Colossus is sorta weird, I really like the Immortal and Stalker.

[SoFool]

Well...talking about missile turret losing its detection is the same as an overlord losing its detection.

I think the colossus can also be used to destroy defense structures instead of just focusing on units.

[Norfindel]

Well...talking about missile turret losing its detection is the same as an overlord losing its detection.

I think the colossus can also be used to destroy defense structures instead of just focusing on units.

I disagree. The Turret is an static detector, as was the Spore Colony (before they decided to give the Zerg attacking buildings that can move), or the Phase Cannon. The Overlord was a 100 mineral Detector + Transport + Supply building that doesn't take space on the base.
Detection on all Overlords was too much, it uttery limited the amount of cloaking you could use against them.