Starcraft 2

[Jebus McAzn]

Is there a way to buy HotS electronically? I already have Wings of Liberty.

 

[Outlaw]

Yeh, you can buy the digital version on blizzards store.

 

[VKCA]

Widows are boss, but they're no replacement for tanks, especially once you reach mid game TvZ, Overseers will make it a problem.

You're underestimating the apm discrepancy between zerg and terran in this situation. Widow mines are super easy to use. Not tactically, but mechanically, they're very easy to set up, it doesn't take many clicks/keystrokes. From the zerg perspective, you've got to to sack a ling/overlord, then you have to send in the overseer and other units. Now take into consideration that you don't know where all of the widow mines are, and it takes some split second reaction time to see the widow mine revealed and sprint away your units immediately and that the terran has many, many more mines than you have overseers, and you've got quite a sticky situation.
But that's okay, because zvt is much harder for terrans, and I'm fine with anything that helps differentiate between the top tier zergs and all these foreigners that got famous cos zerg is ezpz.

Also: You can also be lazier with them than with tanks, as you can make them burrow last minute and you retreat your bio back past them, where as with tanks you can't just let them all get over run by zerg, you need to keep your army with them


if you want to see why tanks aren't necessary in tvz anymore, check this out (flash vs ret from mlg yesterday).


It irks me that both terrans and protoss needed an expansion to stop playing like retards against zerg though. Mass tank+vikings and a smattering of ravens destroys pretty much any composition that zerg can get (in wol), but terrans were so stuck in their "lets threebaseallin erryday all the time" mentality and just never stopped going marine/tank. mech's so awesome, tvz mech hasn't even changed in the expansion (since widow mines and hellbats don't really change anything about the composition you're trying to get) but now all the sudden everybody's going for it and, surprise!, not dying to zergs!!!. Except for those terrans who're playing bio/mine and still winning because of their sick apm like flash.

 

[Llama]

Tanks aren't necessary? Maybe not but they are still very useful, not many people can boss it up like Flash. As a Protoss player who is relatively new to the game (Oct 2012 is when I started) I am not a good judge of TvZ, but that match was intense, bio/mass widow looks damn interesting.

 

[vonFiedler]

Y'know I wasn't expecting much after the big dumb action story that was Wings of Liberty. But Heart of the Swarm's plot is so insultingly bad I'm actually very curious about if and how they'll fuck it up more in the next.

 

[elcheeso]

Y'know I wasn't expecting much after the big dumb action story that was Wings of Liberty. But Heart of the Swarm's plot is so insultingly bad I'm actually very curious about if and how they'll fuck it up more in the next.

Normally I'm one to have a few laughs over people expecting good stories out of Blizzard (I don't think they've ever actually had a story that wasn't a storm of stupid cliches and ridiculous dialogue), but... yeah, HotS was just terrible. Mostly because, hey, let's retcon the entire origin of the zerg because LOL wooo! Even though we went out of our way to explain the original origins of the zerg back when HotS was first being talked about (or maybe it was just before WoL was released, can't remember). Either way, nice work Metzen, you managed to make Kerrigan need to be rescued in her own story.

 

[Trax]

Normally I'm one to have a few laughs over people expecting good stories out of Blizzard (I don't think they've ever actually had a story that wasn't a storm of stupid cliches and ridiculous dialogue)

Warcraft I and II had excellent stories. Not perfect, but pretty damn good.

Warcraft 3 had some good storytelling; some rubbish (and altogether TOO MUCH Arthas in the RoC campaign), but at least the overall arc was pretty good (and I may be alone, but I enjoyed the "Founding of Durotar" campaign in TFT).

 

[vonFiedler]

Actually, unlike other Blizzard works, I think Starcraft and Brood War were some of the more the more nuanced and subtle stories we've seen from video games. To compare and contrast:

In Starcraft, the zerg story was told by cerebrates that were single minded cogs of a larger hivemind.
In Starcraft II, the zerg story is told by anthropomorphic monsters that somehow have very distinct personalities and sometimes even human faces for some stupid reason.

In Starcraft, Sarah Kerrigan always leaves the player guessing what her true intentions are.
In Starcraft II, Sarah Kerrigan is a moron who we are supposed to feel sorry for even as she kills millions.

In Starcraft, evil wins.
In Starcraft II, everyone has to team up to fight space god so there will be no hard feelings or consequences in the end.

 

[VKCA]

If you haven't read this, do, tl has done a couple things like this (all about bogus), they've all been hilarious