StarCraft II Beta Impressions and Screens

What is it with RTS developers deciding that, even with the widespread use of 1680x1050 and higher resolution monitors, we should only have the ability to see a building and perhaps a handful of units on screen at the same time? Is it really that difficult to zoom the heck out or am I just spoiled by the use of my mouse wheel to zoom in Supreme Commander?

Might as well keep playing at 640x480 or 800x600 at this rate...

This game will never see the light of day...

can tom's do some benchmarking for this game? pretty please?

Of course it'll see the light of day, it's insane to say that it won't. It's come so far, just look at the Beta.

For those who weren't lucky to get into the beta right away, I was in the same boat. I hunted giveaways all around the Internet, but it was just little kids trying to get followers on their Twitter so they could brag to their mommy.

Fortunately I did find a legitimate site a day ago. I thought it was a scam because who would really be giving away such a coveted invite, right? But when I woke up the next day, I had been e-mailed with a beta key. I thought it was a fake, but I attached it to my battle.net account and it worked!

I think they have a bunch of beta keys left, because two of my friends who posted on the blog got theirs too, so if you want to try your luck for the Starcraft 2 beta keys then the URL is here:

http://starcraft2betainvites.blogspot.com

Good luck guys, I want to see more people who got their keys for free, and less who paid $300 for them.

Probably to keep the gameplay fair.

Hmm.

Graphics look pretty terrible. I guess that's why it's still beta.

This game is so close I can taste it! I was beginning to believe it was going the way of duke nukem.

imagine, a game developer focusing on game play rather then graphics, what is the world coming to?!

I do not see what you are all complaining about with the graphics...it is an RTS not Crysis....this is leaps and bounds past blizzard's past RTS games and their engines

And the effects from attacks and spells are awesome

Camera height is important such as camera position it's why you cant rotate left and right and hold it there, blizz is making the game for competitive rts. =p

Anyways 640x480 800x600 you'd get screwed the game shows the most at 16:9 resolutions the least at 5:4 resolutions and
16:9>15:9>16:10>4:3>5:4 in terms of viewable area.

In other words you're just spoiled, also there is a benefit to getting high resolution images and models look cleaner at higher resolutions because the game is in 3d =p

game plays on ultra pretty well at all resolutions around the power of a 4870/5770/260 and above.

although i should point out that there has been graphics bugs with some of the 58xx series something about minerals disappearing for no reason at random times, it low numbers of this happening and mostly in CF set ups but it's an odd bug none the less.

I agree wholeheartedly.

Agreed, and here I was hoping to give an RTS (haven't played an RTS for like...ever. It's been mostly Cod4, Halo CE and Crysis for me) for a try with an Eyefinity set up....

got a beta key last week, have been playing the hell out of it. if anyone else is on and wants to add me, my names analbumcover.noobcannon. also got some gameplay on youtube. the game is amazing by the way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEW-fy9m9IM

Sure gameplay is important, but don't forget graphics. Oldschool gameplay like warcraft, warcraft2, dune2, C&C are all fine, but do you really want to play them now? With their graphics. Maybe for a trip down memory lane, but really.

And why does giving more information make the game cheap or easy? The ability to zoom adds strategy and tactics. You have more info, but your opponent too. The ability to deal with and come up with new ways to get around more info is the work of a dev. Not just dump it down and say, this is what you get because we don't know how to make the game more fun if you can see more.

There are plenty of tricks that are known and unknown to them to make the game more interesting with showing more.

The graphics aren't too great and it really hurts. But don't worry, the computers China is throwing away can play them. And the person who asked for a benchmark, it runs perfect on any system bought after 2005.

They keep the game locked to a certain maximum zoom to preserve the sort of gameplay that made SC:BW the best RTS out there by far, the only real e-sports RTS, and the game still played by tens of thousands of people every day. In the meantime, Supreme Commanander with its super zoom is just a gimmick with horrid gameplay that is barely played by anyone. Zooming out for its own sake is pointless. Everything that goes into the game needs to improve gameplay. Unfortunately this is something most companies other than Blizzard can't get their heads around.

Nothing you people have said is a legitimate point against zooming out farther. If EVERYONE can zoom, it doesn't make it any less competitive. In fact, it will make it more competitive by giving people a better way for larger troop movements thereby giving more strategy to the game.

"Super Zoom" as you call it in Supreme Commander is not a gimmick. I highly doubt the kind of troop movements required by Supreme Commander could be pulled off with a camera like Starcraft's.

So no, it's not pointless. Maybe other PEOPLE need to get their head around how it's useful.

I will say this, Blizzard certainly has fed its loyal dogs by giving them the same formula with a few new cookies added in. Graphical Upgrade + Expansion Pack marketed as a new game ftw.

I don't like being locked into a close up zoom level. It's denying me functionality that I enjoy having. If there are people who don't like the ability to zoom in and out, don't use it.

Just let the rest of us play the game how we want.

Wow, after 10 years I thought the graphics would look, well, good.

I'm a huge fan of blizzard... starcraft is my #1 game of all time... at the same time though that means im going to be that much harder on SC2. Its looking great so far blizzard! please please easily exceed my expectations. these are my hopes anyway.

what are you people talking about the graphics are perfect for the game. first of all blizzard isnt trying to make the game unplayable to certain audiances, blizzard makes games that anyone can play, that will run on anyones computer.

Phenomenal post.
And were network play available, I would still be playing Red Alert 1. The gameplay was awesome... I thought multimonitor setups would be a given option...
Close-up claustrophobic camera angles is what killed Heroes of Might and Magic V (turned based strategy game), no way can I deal with this micro view on a real-time game...

I cannot wait, still checking my E-mail everyday for an invite to the beta. I saw a torrent of it, but it still requires a legit crack to make it work. I'm tempted to DL it if i don't see my invite soon =D

LOL, saw the irony in "legit crack" and had to comment.

Its either an illegitimate crack or a legit key....not a legit crack. Since this uses Battle.net I'm sure it requires a legit key, so a crack of any kind would not work.

you people complaining about not being able to zoom out are idiots

Blizzard wants to stay loyal to the old generation of SC die-hards with the static view.

It makes it "harder" in terms of handskill and co-ordination in my opinion. I'm just interested in watching the league play in Korea. However. I agree it could bring a new level of strategy with a larger zoom out but they probably feel its safer keeping it similar to the original.

To everyone wondering why Blizzard might not be implementing a strategic zoom (as seen in games like SupCom and Sins of a Solar Empire), it all boils down to one main reason: Online Competition. If one were to look at both the games with stratzoom, they would realize these games lack a competitive base as large as more tactical games like Warcraft 3, Starcraft, Command and Conquer 3, Company of Heroes, etc. This article has some pretty good points concerning SupCom and online competitive play: http://www.ggl.com/?controller=New [...] od=article

I just don't care about that. I can't wait to play the game.

They do describe some issues with the way SupCom made their game, but it's not the fault of zooming, it's the fault of map size.

I think the biggest complain from the reviewers is it's not a skirmish battle, but a army vs army. In the end nothing that is written in that article will apply to SC2 anyway.

Again no reason to be against zooming. I understand an old school feel for no zoom, no turning the screen etc. But at the same time those options add to gameplay. You can use that.

But we can discuss the lack of zooming, but it's just not in. The game doesn't have stunning graphics, which is a big shame and people who say it runs on every computer fail to realize that a bit more graphics wouldn't have hurt the people playing it.

But look at all blizzards games, it's the same with almost all of them. I think only Diablo 1 was working with heavy graphics requirements for it's time, requiring a 3d card. Everything else runs on computers people don't have anymore. Sure graphics aren't all, but it's just not great to look at these graphics while playing a game in 2010. Sure Koreans will be playing this game for 5 years or 10, but who cares about them? I don't really care about if my neighbor can play it, if it runs great on my computer.

And don't forget, you have to keep these graphics until 2020. When SC3 will be released. I really hope Diablo 3 has better graphics.

My hope is Blizzard working out alot of the annoyances of SC I. For ex, Tiny groupings were terrible in SC 1, you couldn't set miners to auto-mine upon creation, you could only tell units to perform one task at a time (with the exception of moving and repairing). It ended up turning the game into a constant ADD click fest. Asians may love this, but the heart of the game should always be your strategy, and your ability to macro-multitask; not your ability to click 100 times per second.

Yeah give me things like portal instead of another clone with better graphics. O wait the majority of players found portal confusing, hard and lost interest long before the end... Maybe thats something to do with it. Most people arent prepared to learn new games that requires different thought patterns.