launch Time for HotS

GosuIrish

Just for any one wondering whenthey can start playing, HotS we will be able to play from 11.01pm Monday night and if you have your sc2 client updated most of the download for hots should already be done

http://us.battle.net/sc2/en/blog/8983616/Heart_of_the_Swarm_Live_Server_Times-3_8_2013

murphzor

Can hardly wait

Dcully

Watching the launch event from Korea on twitch, the gas thing is i havent played SC in ages as i simply suck so bad at the game.

GosuIrish

The players for the korean launch o.O

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

good game between flash and life

Orizio

Launch day for a new expansion...LoL still has twice the viewers on twitch.

Nony doing the campaign on his stream right now btw. Dialogue and writing is pitiful.

murphzor

Orizio wrote: »

Launch day for a new expansion...LoL still has twice the viewers on twitch.

Nony doing the campaign on his stream right now btw. Dialogue and writing is pitiful.

**** off

If you had a shred of self respect you'd play dota.

Orizio

murphzor wrote: »

**** off

If you had a shred of self respect you'd play dota.

DOTA, LoL...all the same thing. I play both.

But I agree Valve (and Riot) know what they are doing. Blizzard on the other hand...mediocre game with only hardcore support, a stagnant metagame, zero growth and backed up by a ****ty business model. Unless they go free to play this is the end of the Starcraft franchise...which is a shame for talent like Flash, Grubby etc, although in truth SC2 is entirely undeserving of their abilities.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

are you serious?
you want to talk about a ****ty business model when lol and dota are only kept alive by their publishers injecting loads of money into the scene?
remove publisher support and there would be one game of the 3 still going, sc2. lol and dota would collapse.

murphzor

Orizio wrote: »

DOTA, LoL...all the same thing. I play both.

But I agree Valve (and Riot) know what they are doing. Blizzard on the other hand...mediocre game with only hardcore support, a stagnant metagame, zero growth and backed up by a ****ty business model. Unless they go free to play this is the end of the Starcraft franchise...which is a shame for talent like Flash, Grubby etc, although in truth SC2 is entirely undeserving of their abilities.

Not sure if serious

Grimebox

Orizio wrote: »

DOTA, LoL...all the same thing. I play both.

But I agree Valve (and Riot) know what they are doing. Blizzard on the other hand...mediocre game with only hardcore support, a stagnant metagame, zero growth and backed up by a ****ty business model. Unless they go free to play this is the end of the Starcraft franchise...which is a shame for talent like Flash, Grubby etc, although in truth SC2 is entirely undeserving of their abilities.

Brave to go into an starcraft forum saying all this

ShadowHearth

I would hate if sc2 would go free to play. Free to play is not bad in some cases, but recently it is more annoying them good. I got 5 free to play games installed and I like all of them, but I cannot dedicate so much time for all of them as those are made to be huge time sinks. If you start spending money in them, them you pay more then if it would be pay to play in the first place. For example I love ghost recon online, but one high level guns is like 25eu. That's no attachments etc. **** this.

The only reason LoL tournament scene is big, because riot sinks millions in to fecking thing. Makes me wonder if people play it because they like it or because price money is big?
Where's SC was always big, even without money life support.

Moba games are fun and I had my share of fun with them, but where skill comes Moba games have feck all on SC. Controlling 1 unit vs 100++ and base management.

Grimebox

I pray that Starcraft never goes free to play. Absolutely dreadful business model imo. Unfortunately it seems to be prevailing

ShadowHearth

Well, I just back home from work. In the way home I got myself HOS too.
Walking the dogs now, but after I'll change myself and off we go or some swarm action! Can't wait!

Grimebox

First level of the single player is a bit stupid. It teaches you how to build a hatchery, mine with some drones, build a spawning pool and build some lings. It does tie into narrative somewhat well but I still despise having my hand held in any game, especially a game that requires the prequel to play; we all know this stuff already. I'm playing on brutal to make it last longer but I beat the first few levels without any problem. I'm just too good at Starcraft it seems

Oh and there's new music for multiplayer! I'll probably end up turning it off just like I did in the last one though. You should be able to shuffle the soundtrack rather than the song being dictated by whatever race you are playing. People tend to stick to one race

GosuIrish

Didn't mind the prequel mission its really just there for people who only played wings for single player and never touched zerg before and its quick enough ,also very happy with the new map pool just wish they dumped daybreak and left cloud

Zombrex

Orizio wrote: »

LoL still has twice the viewers on twitch.

Well of course it does, a local boxing match or football game will pull in more viewers than an international chess tournament. Its the just the nature of the viewing experience.

Nody

Simply shows how out of date I'm with SC2 at the moment (I've got HoTS bought and activated on my account already but not downloaded or installed) so thank you OP for reminding me (I thought it was still a week or two away).

ShadowHearth

Grimebox wrote: »

First level of the single player is a bit stupid. It teaches you how to build a hatchery, mine with some drones, build a spawning pool and build some lings. It does tie into narrative somewhat well but I still despise having my hand held in any game, especially a game that requires the prequel to play; we all know this stuff already. I'm playing on brutal to make it last longer but I beat the first few levels without any problem. I'm just too good at Starcraft it seems

Oh and there's new music for multiplayer! I'll probably end up turning it off just like I did in the last one though. You should be able to shuffle the soundtrack rather than the song being dictated by whatever race you are playing. People tend to stick to one race

First mission was really WTF, but it was really damn well put in to if you ask me. It is only one mission like this though, after that hand holding sort of backs off.
I am playing on only on hard ( as i am pussy at SC ) and so far i have to reply on mission 5. Just a bit too greedy of me in the first place, now i know what am i doing.
So far I love it. It has that "blizzard feel" in it. Story hooked me up in seconds. Really Loving the cut scenes, voice acting and missions.

Grimebox

The new queens are pretty cool. Old habits die hard though, I was trying to inject the hatcheries with larva and transfuse between queens.

The story seems to be told well in terms of voice acting, cut scenes and the missions themselves are inventive, but I'm not sure if the actual plotline is written too well. I didn't realize it was essentially a love story. They all seem like different characters in SC1. So all of Raynor and Kerrigans motivation was just so they could be together? I'm not all that happy with that disposition so far (only mission 3 mind you)

ShadowHearth

Grimebox wrote: »

The new queens are pretty cool. Old habits die hard though, I was trying to inject the hatcheries with larva and transfuse between queens.

The story seems to be told well in terms of voice acting, cut scenes and the missions themselves are inventive, but I'm not sure if the actual plotline is written too well. I didn't realize it was essentially a love story. They all seem like different characters in SC1. So all of Raynor and Kerrigans motivation was just so they could be together? I'm not all that happy with that disposition so far (only mission 3 mind you)

Well he did go through **** storm in Sons of liberty to get her back and he did

killed good old Tychus

. As for new queens. they dont have larva anymore? i though you get them later with upgrades or something? I did not played beta so i dont have a clue about zergs now.

Grimebox

ShadowHearth wrote: »

Well he did go through **** storm in Sons of liberty to get her back and he did

killed good old Tychus

. As for new queens. they dont have larva anymore? i though you get them later with upgrades or something? I did not played beta so i dont have a clue about zergs now.

Nah I'm talking purely about single player queens with their auto-cast transfuse. You can build them on the 2nd mission

BlitzKrieg

playing through the campaign, liking the story, loving the characters, off kilter zerg characters are always entertaining and one mission in particular is epic fun even if a bit simple.

the alien like parasite in a protoss ship level

but

the missions on Char are bloody tedious to the extreme, especially the last one I was gnawing my mouse mat when the f*ckwit terran targeted me with nukes for the 50th time. They're easy enough to dodge, but it turns the level into a slow slog through the base when every few seconds you got to move your rally point or your army and kerrigan repeats the same lines over and over and at the same time while you are dodging the nuke there is a counter attack. And this just repeats as you push your way through the fortress. Was so bloody happy to see the back of that level. Nice cinematic at the end though

I am also worrying of level mechanics beginning to repeat themselves too soon, serious case of deja vu with the third planet's first level.

murphzor

Completed the campaign on brutal. It was too easy but the story was grand and it was fun to play.

Also

MOTHER****ING LURKERS

Azza

Just playing it through on Hard and I'm struggling 4-5 missions in.

But its good so far.

grizzly

Does buying HOTS effect the multiplayer experience? Or just unlock the single player campaign?

Grimebox

I dropped to hard last night playing the mission where you

must kill the three original zerg bosses and take their essence.

I'll go back and do it sometime. I just didn't have the patience

Grimebox

grizzly wrote: »

Does buying HOTS effect the multiplayer experience? Or just unlock the single player campaign?

There are a few new units in the multiplayer and old units have been altered. It's a different game. You can still play WoL multiplayer though

Gbear

Despatched from Amazon last night. I got Diablo 3 the day it was released but no such luck with HOTS. Hopfully I'll get it by Friday.

Orizio

Zombrex wrote: »

Well of course it does, a local boxing match or football game will pull in more viewers than an international chess tournament. Its the just the nature of the viewing experience.

Pretty prejudicial analogy. Comparing basically a dumbed down casual game like SC2 to chess is a huge insult to the latter.

Interesting to see Destiny back streaming HOTS ladder last night. Got 10k viewers at his peak.

ShadowHearth

Orizio wrote: »

Pretty prejudicial analogy. Comparing basically a dumbed down casual game like SC2 to chess is a huge insult to the latter.

Interesting to see Destiny back streaming HOTS ladder last night. Got 10k viewers at his peak.

Go away troll. No food for you here.

murphzor

Orizio wrote: »

Pretty prejudicial analogy. Comparing basically a dumbed down casual game like SC2 to chess is a huge insult to the latter.

Are you still butthurt about those practice games where I made a joke out of you? Please go away.

IRL_Sinister

HAI GUISE

GosuIrish

Finished on Hard will go do brutal sometime later , was alot of fun few things i wish there was more of , now time to hit the ladder

Orizio

murphzor wrote: »

Are you still butthurt about those practice games where I made a joke out of you? Please go away.

...what?

Orizio

IRL_Sinister wrote: »

HAI GUISE

:pac: You back playing?

Rev Hellfire

Lets cut out the name calling.

SB2013

Anyone set up a channel for multiplayer?

Gbear

Seeing as you apparently can't install from the disk, like a normal game, but have to download it from the internet (what's the disc for then?) this is taking bloody ages to install.

A modern game shouldn't take 2 hours to install.

Similar sized games normally take about 10-20 minutes.


Edit: Nevermind 2 hours, this is going to take at least 4. This is bollocks to be honest.:mad:

Gbear

This is a serious cluster**** by Blizzard. How were any of the rest of you even able to play this?
Are you all fortunate enough to have 100Mb broadband?

It's going to take me at least 17 hours to install the ****ing thing. Utter ****ing disgrace.:mad:

Talk about fixing what isn't broken. I have absolutely no idea why they had to go reinventing the wheel when installing from the disk has worked perfectly fine for about 15 years.

Grimebox

I just bought it online. 12GB download comes with that convenience. It's bizarre that you can't install from the disk

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

someone was saying last night that you can install from disk if you installed wol from a disk, otherwise.. download only

GosuIrish

i had wings installed from a disc and around a month ago hots started to download in the background its self so come release all i got was another 100mb update and it unlocked

Grimebox

GosuIrish wrote: »

i had wings installed from a disc and around a month ago hots started to download in the background its self so come release all i got was another 100mb update and it unlocked

People who didn't buy hots had to download that as well apparently

GosuIrish

Grimebox wrote: »

People who didn't buy hots had to download that as well apparently

yeah that is true , mine downloaded before i even bought the game and you got no notification about or anyway to stop it just happened on its own

Grimebox

I hate TotalBiscuit so much. I can't believe MLG hire him as a caster. It is litreally ruining the event for me. He doesn't know a thing about the game

ShadowHearth

Grimebox wrote: »

I hate TotalBiscuit so much. I can't believe MLG hire him as a caster. It is litreally ruining the event for me. He doesn't know a thing about the game

I like him.


Anyway, watching MLG Bomber vs GOSWSER match. Fecking trololol AWESOME game!

Gbear

Finished the campaign.

Seems like Blizzards modus operandi is to have some **** up at launch but then hope everyone forgets because the game is so good.

Really enjoyed the campaign.

Off to see if they've added Hots units to monobattles!

Gbear

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

I am also worrying of level mechanics beginning to repeat themselves too soon, serious case of deja vu with the third planet's first level.

Yeah.

There was a bit of that.

Most of the levels boil down to some race against the clock.

Last mission was nice though. Look forward to trying it on brutal. Don't think there was even 1 mission in WOL where you just had to build units and steamroller and the difficulty is brought by having to face lots of really strong units. I like those missions if there's one or two sprinkled in. In the original SC all the missions were pretty much like that.

murphzor

That game between bomber and goswer was absolutely bonkers.

SB2013

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I like him.


Anyway, watching MLG Bomber vs GOSWSER match. Fecking trololol AWESOME game!

You can't possibly like him. He's a gigantic pompous ass. I like his casting though.

My issue with SC2 is this whole "streaming" thing. The internet in my area has been pretty poor for a few days and it's taking ages to load campaign maps or vs AI games. I can't understand how the Diablo3 and sim City have not thought people any lessons.