Anyone got a Starcraft CD Key?/Starcraft2 thread

[Minions]

I know this is asking a lot since most of you don't know me, however being in college my gaming budget is pretty small atm. If anyone has an old Starcraft key they don't mind sharing let me know. With Starcraft2 coming up i've been in the mood for some old school broodwar Lost my case at some point so I just need a key.

Figured i'd keep this thread on task by posting some things from upcoming Starcraft2.

Some of the new units
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30MBljXxg3M

The introductory trailer that was first released
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELhtXtnV3pg

The demo shown after SC2 was announced with commentary
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ipBCEZwbM0

Do you think the game will live up to the expectations? I have high hopes for this game, seeing as its been so long since the first game, however don't know if it will catch on as much as the original. Kind of like Counterstrike1.6 vs Source. Also let me know if anyone has a key they are not using. Thanks, Minions

[ferigor]

I'm hoping that starcraft II will break my horrid ffxi addiction. I've only bought 2 games in the last 5 years.

Needless to say I'm stoked about it. Just got that nostalgic feeling and busted out my old copies and installed them. If I gave you my cd key would it effect my ability to play? For what its worth, I don't play on battle.net (or at least, I haven't in like 4 years and would be horribly embarassed).

[Minions]

Only affects your ability to play if someone is on the same server as you are playing on. A person playing on USEast won't affect USWest (unless it has changed since I last played). If its an issue I can run aim while playing and if you wanna get on just message.

[Wintermute]

I've not busted out the old Starcraft in a while.

If you still need a key I'll PM you mine when I get out of work in 3 Hours or so since I never play online so no chance of conflicts.

[Minions]

Ok I'll let you know. Thanks alot.

[Correction]

Even as a poor student I could spring 20 bucks for a game...

[Minions]

Even as a poor student I could spring 20 bucks for a game...

SSB BRAWL = Budget for this month

[geno]

Weird, I was just watching the SC2 demo again earlier today; I have the higher definition one on hard drive though. For anyone interested (anyone who has ever played or heard of starcraft better be...), Zerg is being announced in two days as well. Some press and major community sites are going to be at the newest unveiling, and I believe there will be some SC2 playing too, though not open to public probably . The Korean professional SC teams are all sending one of their best/highest payed players to test it out too.

As for how starcraft2 will compare to the original... I have pretty high hopes as a gamer. From what I've seen so far, I doubt they could screw it up for the vast majority of people, including myself.

(beware: wall-of-text on pro-SC below!)

As a starcraft fan though (see: Professional Starcraft), its really hard to say. Some of the things seen in the videos are being highly debated amongst pro starcraft communities as to how they will affect extremely high level competition. One hotly debated example: Multiple Building Selection (or MBS for short). MBS allows players to select many production buildings, allowing them to produce great numbers of units with extreme ease: hotkey a large selection to 1 then in a large battle it would take far less then a second to hit 1z / 1sz / 1m or whatever unit you are making. This will make high level competition focused a lot more on micro tasks and not macro tasks. In other words, there will be a lot more focus on individual battles and how the units will engage them, and far less on reproducing those units by multitasking during even the most important of moments to ensure you outproduce your opponent. Some argue this will mean it will be a lot easier to be one of the best, effectively making the game too easy overall to be a true e-sport game. The reason starcraft has faired so well in Korea is because you can consistently get better and better as the game is just too hard to completely master for any one player. Professional gamers spend 10+hours a day practicing for months on end, and yet people can still see small mistakes, or probably a better way to describe it, room for improvement. So far as I know, no person can yet produce new units, harass a mineral line with a couple units, expand to a secure location, and on top of that use their main army in a full-scale conflict simultaneously. Multitasking aside, its just not physically possible to hit the keys that fast. Some fear if the game is made a bit too easy, there will be less to be impressed about when the "impossible" does happen, and the game will no longer be as entertaining to watch.

On the other hand, supporters of MBS claim, and rightfully so, that it will make the game more fun for not only weaker players, but even medium to high level players as it wouldn't be enough to make the game terribly easy for them. Some will also argue that it wouldn't even be significant enough to make high level play less impressive, which could also be true. One of the main benefits is that for the average gamer, it will make the game more accessible and fun to play overall. Even if it does make high level play considerably more 'micro' oriented, some feel this wouldn't be a bad thing. It will mean we get to see more awesomely executed attacks at the pro level that even now, and that there will be so much potential micro control that it will be impossible to perfect, recreating that "impossible" situation I mentioned above except with a different focus.

I didn't intend to go into so much detail about that, but it is pretty interesting to consider/discuss. There have been countless arguments about MBS on Battle.net forums and starcraft community sites, and while I did explain the position and reasoning why people do/don't support it, I don't claim to take a side one way or the other. I feel the same way for most other issues I've seen debated on said forums. I will be happy with whatever Blizzard ultimately decides to do, because in the end I have faith that the company will make a game that I will enjoy playing. I HOPE it will also survive as an e-sport game too, but I'll just be happy to play it.

[Minions]

Even taking macro out of the picture, build strats, whether to expand, and how well you defend your expansions will still show how well people can play.

See. http://www.youtube.com/user/KlazartSC

Things such as burrowing units to hide your numbers, moving away drones/scv's on a reaver drop, and counterattacking will still be based on skill. I think seeing more control over every battle on a huge scale would be a lot more fun to watch, than watch them build units building by building. If anything we should see more action, and less down time in matches.

[Ramor]

Holy crap, I love how they're more or less updating some of the old units by adding variations to them, makes things easy but still really cool

[Sonomaa]

the word in the industry I heard is that blizzard is seriously considering a "classic mode" for starcraft, which basically returns the game to exact SC1 specifications and units but with SC2 graphics engine

[finale23]

blizzard needs to put up the new contents for zerg already... zerg's probably the most exciting race in the original SC and subsequent broodwar with the distinct unpredictability to placate any devoted audience of the SC series. for those who are interested, check out a korean player named "Jaedong" on youtube, who's destined to be the "new hope" for all zerg players across the board with his extremely versatile playing style characterized by agile aggressiveness and 450/500 APM tactile capacity.

[Ramor]

the word in the industry I heard is that blizzard is seriously considering a "classic mode" for starcraft, which basically returns the game to exact SC1 specifications and units but with SC2 graphics engine

that would be amazing, although it might create a split in the playerbase between those who don't like the new units/features which might be awkward...

anyone happen to know if they're doing anything similar to WC3's map editor? I liked the ability to change just about anything

[Minions]

the word in the industry I heard is that blizzard is seriously considering a "classic mode" for starcraft, which basically returns the game to exact SC1 specifications and units but with SC2 graphics engine

Yes please! I would love that, would also help get use to the new SC engine.

[Senoska]

Edit: Best to PM that, I guess, Check your PMs and let me know if it worked.

[Kaylia]

the word in the industry I heard is that blizzard is seriously considering a "classic mode" for starcraft, which basically returns the game to exact SC1 specifications and units but with SC2 graphics engine

They should. Take 5 min to make, and it would stop a war between S.korea and USA

[geno]

Even taking macro out of the picture, build strats, whether to expand, and how well you defend your expansions will still show how well people can play.

See. http://www.youtube.com/user/KlazartSC

Things such as burrowing units to hide your numbers, moving away drones/scv's on a reaver drop, and counterattacking will still be based on skill. I think seeing more control over every battle on a huge scale would be a lot more fun to watch, than watch them build units building by building. If anything we should see more action, and less down time in matches.

Well the thing is, the observers for the matches do not watch first person views (that would probably induce seizures for lots of people). As it is, at the pro-level there is no way the obs can catch most of the things the players do. They can see their build plans, expansion timings, and usually just follow any conflicts they see. No doubt the game will require tremendous amounts of skill to play well in the end. The question is, will it be easy enough that a LOT of people will eventually reach that skill, or will it be so hard that very few will (as was the case for starcraft)? If there are too many good players, people won't find themselves starting to really like one player, which is sort of a necessity for any sport or e-sport. Most basketball fans will care quite a bit about the teams and players playing. They won't be content just knowing that its two fields of nameless players that were good enough to play this time, but they'll probably never see again. SC is so successful in Korea because this isn't really the case so far. Players like Savior have a cultlike following, because he was absolutely the best for over a year, among a large community of players. Making the game just a LITTLE bit easier might make things like that hard to see again.

I agree though, that micro does make for entertainment. Seeing a monster plague on a large collection of science vessels in a critical battle or two scourges finding their way to a wayward dropship is impressive. But the thing is, its only impressive because its hard to imagine the player having the time to do that while hes doing 400 other things a minute (literally). People would eventually be less impressed when it becomes so common that its hard to imagine it NOT happening. Anyways, I'm not the best person to argue against MBS since I haven't actually followed the debate much. If you are interested in seeing some spirited debate about the issue, I'd advise you to check out this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmes ... c_id=66886

the word in the industry I heard is that blizzard is seriously considering a "classic mode" for starcraft, which basically returns the game to exact SC1 specifications and units but with SC2 graphics engine

Blizzard Q&As
Blizzard has been doing tons of Q&As with fansite questions (32 batches so far), and I remember an issue like this coming up in one about the future map editor. The map editor for SC2 is looking to be absolutely insane, taking a page from WC3s map editor and making EVERYTHING editable. They are also including ridiculous amounts of features, many of which are very far from the actual game. For example, they are adding a system to allow hero type units to gain experience and use items, similar to WC3, even though the functionality might be completely unused in the actual game (both single and multiplayer). (See: Q&A Batch 22) This means it won't be long before an SC2 DoTA finds its way out.
Anyways, about what you said. In batch 9:

Will there be some old units from StarCraft be included in the Map Editor for StarCraft II?

There will be units included in the Map Editor which will not be in the standard multiplayer skirmish mode. These will include various units from the original StarCraft, such as the Protoss Dragoon.

Even if Blizzard doesn't create a mode for original starcraft, I would imagine within days the game would have been recreated as a special map by diehard editors. It wouldn't even be difficult knowing that Blizzard plans on putting SC1 units in the game, and are allowing editors to change very fundamental aspects such as tech trees.

[geno]

I also want to point out in relation to the MBS debate that it is only one of many things being argued about. I was just reminded of this as I was reading some of the Q&As I've never read before. Some other areas of improved functionality (aka easier gameplay):

Autogathering - workers rallied to a mineral patch will begin mining on their own.
Unlimited Unit Selection (UUS) - self explanatory, but: Can select unlimited units instead of the old control group size of 12.
Smartcasting - Selecting 6 High templars and hitting storm on an area under smart casting will result in only one templar casting storm. In SC1 if you did this, you would have wasted 5 storms.

All of these are pretty hotly debated issues for competitive starcraft as they help considerably with multitasking. I think most people feel that autogathering is probably the least significant, and that UUS might not even be important as good players will still use manageable and varying control group sizes. The absence of smartcasting made good storms and dark swarms in professional SC games ridiculously impressive, but at the cost of making them less used and effective in normal games.

[Indalecia]

Haha, I'm leveling blm and he's like "Got a starcraft cd key?" "yeah a shitload why?" "One that works on battle.net!!!"

Yeah, not so much

:ashira:

[Seditedi]

Even as a poor student I could spring 20 bucks for a game...

some college students don't work at all.