Lipton's BlizzCon 08 StarCraft II overview

A little late, but here it is

First let me say that California is beautiful... seriously it is 1 of like 3 states I'd want to live in, if I can get out of Texas. Weather is like everyone says, nice every day, not too hot or not too cold. Tho Miles of sc2armory thought it was pretty hot Thursday, but I reminded him I'm from TX. Also the palm trees! I couldn't get over the palm trees :]

Now I've driven through Cali before on the US1 from SF all the way back to TX, but that isn't the same as actually walking around the city and chillin.

So anyways I get to the lobby of the Anaheim marriot early Thursday morning waiting around with other fansite people and reporters for the Blizzard bus to their HQ. There were several sites from Europe and Asia there, also saw Savior and a couple other Pro gamers go out for a smoke. I finally met Webnet, and Mr. Jack of sc-source.com Jack brought his sketch book and is an amazing artist... I wonder if he got a chance to show it to Blizz devs yet.

Anyways the rest of our trip to Blizzard HQ you can read about here: Live Blogging From BlizzCon 08


Back to BlizzCon

Like other writers/bloggers/reporters I had a press pass that allowed me to get in 30 minutes before the massive crowd of 22,000 and gain front line access at the gaming stages.

Since the SC2 gameplay area was the first place I hit, lets dive into my SC2 racial analysis...


The Visuals

The new SC2 gameplay is very mobile, very fast and very StarCraft. None of my fears existed at all once in front of the screen. Units are easy to pick out, the graphics are stunningly beautiful and vibrant yet does not distract at all.

Seriously, when I sat down I was almost blinded by the colors of the SC2 start screen, and I really don't mean that in a bad way! With StarCraft we're used to 256 muted colors, but the vibrant 32-bit color was very refreshing, modern and lux for StarCraft 2.

The dev team definately put a lot of love in the details, from the water effects, smoke effects, ambient lightintg etc etc...

SC2 hands down is one of the best looking games I've ever played.


Gameplay

The Game is FAST, original SC fans will not be disapointed... matches were time limited to 20 minutes each, but every game I played felt like 5-10 minutes long.

I played about 20 matches only lost 1 to slasher who lied about his newbieness

The build at BlizzCon was 3 weeks old and still had the dual Gas-Mechanic, which was the most annoying experience while playing. Gas ran out super quick and made for a lot of probes just sitting around for a long time while the Gas 're-charged'. Dustin Browder said at the lunch at Blizz HQ that the mechanic isn't liked a lot by many devs as well. It most likely will be removed or changed somehow, which should be a relief for any gamer that got a taste of "Vespense gas depleted" 50 times during a match.

Pathing is increable, almost too good... it takes a lot of units now to box in any 1 unit, but I feel the pathing may open up new quirk strategies we won't see till months after SC2's release.

Unit selection is great, but does have some kinks... for example when you try to select 3-4 probes to throw into your gas, you more often then naught(if you build lots of miners) will select a dozen. I did that more then a few times and it hurts your mineral production slightly if you don't re select just 3-4.

Ok lets talk race...




Protoss

Are by far the most balanced and thus powerful race in the game right now, they are solid early, mid and late imo. They have strong builds vs both Zerg and Terran and Protoss vs Protoss isn't boring at all.

VS Zerg, it usually went zeals with charge to mass stalkers till I can get a couple of Colossi out and then its pretty though for the Zerg.


VZ Terran, early Zeals works, stalkers to immortals def work. Warp-in is a killer, as seen in the Yellow vs Sonkie match.


The Warp Gate upgrade only costs a resonable 50/50 and takes off 10 secs of build time, the only negative is you can't queue up. Phase Phrism from Robo pop in a probe and head off to the enemy backline... drop probe, cannon + back up phylon or just warp in your troops, needless to say multiple gates increases the effectiveness of this attack.

Blink is also an essential upgrade for any Toss player, Stalkers without blink is like ice-tea without sugar, just isn't as good or sweet.

The Colossus is just flat out kick ass, from its looks to its movement and the sound and effects of its termal lances. It also eats up Zerg units and Terran Infantry.. in fact it does well vs Thors now too which I feel just don't fit their new role.

As I said the Protoss have it all right now, counters for all races, transportation, mobility, best cloak detection and awesome spell casting.

On the negative side: the photo cannon's head still doesn't turn to face the enemy its shooting yet.



Zerg

The Zerg are as creepy and nasty as ever, all the subtle tenticle, slimish animations will please any Z fan.

They still need a lot of work, being the newest race to be released... early game Zerg has a few choices such as mass ling, mass ling roach or a mix. The Queen never really factored into any of the strategies I tried at BlizzCon, mostly used her to extend creep using her creep tumor ability.

Lings are real cannon fooder these days, but the new pathing keeps their deadliness in numbers alive. Roaches are a much bigger pain for the enemy with their fast regen. Up the tier Hydras just don't feel like the old hydras, still great anti-air, but their ground dominance feels lessened. I didn't get to play with Mutas much, but they resembled their original kin and the ling+muta game will most likely be the same and potentially more deadly with SC2 pathing.

Infestors rock, their spell that spawns Infested Terrans is a little weird, but works great with distracting the enemy and causing more pain.  Also their temp mind-control (10 sec) is great for swinging battles...

Late game, the Ultras are some serious bad *****, the new Ultras are huge and deadly. Dealing 60 AOE (cleave) damage these guys are carve through armies, however they are still vaunerable if stuck on a choke and surrounded by mass ranged units like Immortals.

The Nydus worm does not need creep anymore which helps them out a lot more now.

Overall positives:
Zerg are still the best massers and expanders, great mobility and can still change strategies on the fly.

Negatives:
Zerg seem to lack some devisive builds, course this is because its still an Alpha.


Terran

Terrans are in need of as much work as the Zerg imho... The Thor doesn't feel like an anti-air unit, and I would have liked to play the original Thor with its twin super cannons.

From the start of the game however, everything is smooth, supply depots fit snug next to the Barracks to seal off choke points.

SCVs hum and buzz along as they gather minerals or carry back gas. Marines are useful through out all stages of the game as with the original, however I missed the Medics... only 2 Terran games I played did I ever make a Starport to allow access to Medivacs and even then I never used them to help infantry, just to drop tanks and Ghosts.

Thors just seems to me like they need to be more of a force on the field, the first time I faced off against a Terran army with Thors I was slightly intimidated, after destroying that army Thors now seem like just a money sink in 1 unit to scare people.

One really weird thing with Terran, was that you need to build an armory in order to research seige mode. Terran players I met were really pissed off at that.

Another thing that could hurt Terran vs Zerg is the lack of Iradiate, the Nomad turned Night Hawk has spells that basically drop mines, drop gun turrets and a laser that increases the amount of damage to units that it targets. Nothing as powerfull as Psi-storm or even 10sec temp mind-control imho...

Overall Terrans are still great at defensive pushes, Marines still sturdy little bastards and BCs dominate. However they need help in a lot of areas...


Unit Model Changes

2 major unit changes that stood out to me were the Nomad -> Night Hawk and the updated Stalker unit:

Old dorky Stalker  New slicker Stalker

Nerdy Nomad Up in your face Night Hawk

For full details of Unit Stats and cost check out sc2armory's unit listing (Miles spent a lot of time recording stats while I played SC2)

http://www.sc2armory.com/game/protoss/
http://www.sc2armory.com/game/terran/
http://www.sc2armory.com/game/zerg/


Also be sure to check out ColdLogic's BlizzCon 08 impressions as well:
http://starfeeder.gameriot.com/blogs/The-Logic-of-the-Brood/BlizzCon-2008-SC2-Glimpses

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