StarCraft 2

[Redenbacher09]

You just sign in as a guest. The login is only to connect to your Battle.net account to keep track of achievements and other stats. If you login as a guest, you can play the campaign it just won't keep track of your achievements, I believe.

What Magnum said.


Also, as far as being afraid to play online, there's really no reason to be. If Blizzard did one thing right, it's introducing new players to this competitive arena. 50 practice matches will more than get your feet wet (with 'beginners rules' and 'novice' maps), and the placement matches are generally new players just like you - like I said, 4 out of 5 of my matches were players who blatantly only knew the basics... build structures, pump out units, attack, expand, etc... nothing more than that. These guys you see on YouTube are at the top end of the game (they play SC2 for a living), and this is why leagues were set up.. You'll never play someone at the top of Diamond League when you're in the bottom of Bronze - you'll be paired up with players on your level, slightly higher, or slightly lower .

If the stupid custom games weren't so addicting, I'd be playing league games

[Magnum]

What make up the 'beginner's rules' anyway? I didn't really look into, but I was curious when I say that detail in the game. Difficulty-wise, what's it compare to playing these people in the practice matches?

[Redenbacher09]

From what I'm reading, it plays at a slower speed, and with destructible rocks blocking the entrance to your base. Which means no rushing or scouting early on... it sounds like it may hurt more than help, but I suppose you have to start somewhere

Either way, you can skip them, if it's way too 'nooby' for you, which if you're any kind of a gamer and have played any RTS before, they probably will be.

[Magnum]

From what I'm reading, it plays at a slower speed, and with destructible rocks blocking the entrance to your base. Which means no rushing or scouting early on... it sounds like it may hurt more than help, but I suppose you have to start somewhere

Either way, you can skip them, if it's way too 'nooby' for you, which if you're any kind of a gamer and have played any RTS before, they probably will be.

Sounds like I could skip my usually base defenses and go right to my flying forces of doom as Terrans all the quicker. I'd just have to wait for the resources to come in at that slow of a pace.

[Redenbacher09]

You'd win even faster just making a few reapers and sending them over the wall

[Magnum]

True, but it wouldn't be nearly as satisfying as having 6-7 fully upgraded Battlecrusiers sweep through their base in a blaze of glory! MUAHAHAH!...*cough*...umm, excuse me I got a little carried away.

[Orannis]

the problem with the rocks is that they are usually the only entrance to your base (a friend of mine and I played a custom game with the noob rules, sucked to have the early rush blocked for so long. Oh well, thats what void rays are for!)

[Redenbacher09]

Played two more ranked matches last night, 2 protoss back to back.

The first massed stalkers, teched to Templar. In response, I opened with ling/roach, and teched to Hydra/Ultra.

I didn't keep pressure on and failed to drone properly, so his economy ran away ahead of mine. My ultras were crushed by the stalkers and Templar annihilated my Hydras. While I defeated his small pushes, it wasn't without losing my entire army as well, and his final push knocked me over. In hindsight, teching to Ultras was an awful idea. I think I should have gone zergling/baneling/hydra. Send the banelings at the templar and surround the stalkers with lings/hydras...

The second was a void rush. I scouted once, saw a wall going up, but nothing special. My second scout revealed a photon cannon wall - Instantly thought, "Crap. Void Rays." Pumped drones, upgraded Lair, dropped a third expo, and pumped out 2 extra queens (total, 4), followed by Hydras as soon as the Den went down. Right as his 4 rays showed up at my natural, 8 hydras popped out of their eggs and made short work out of them. Instant surrender by the enemy.

[SuperJay]

^ Haha, cool. Congrats on that 2nd victory, and nice job learning from the first. I like reading the recaps, even though I don't fully understand them. (Queens before hydras, third expo, void rays, etc)

I'm still playing through the campaign in SC1 myself. I've skipped around between the 3 campaigns and have yet to finish any of them. :P

[Redenbacher09]

^ Haha, cool. Congrats on that 2nd victory, and nice job learning from the first. I like reading the recaps, even though I don't fully understand them. (Queens before hydras, third expo, void rays, etc)

Hahaha, yea, I suppose that is a bit vague

When playing Zerg, I pretty much always grab an expansion quickly, because in SC2 there are all sorts of new mechanics to boost your economy. For Terran, they have these things called MULEs, which are like having 6 extra SCVs mining for you - and don't interfere with your existing SCVs for a limited amount of time. Protoss have Chrono Boost, which increase the production rate of buildings, including the nexus, by 50% for 20 seconds, to pump out more probes/units. Zerg don't really have anything like that, pretty much forcing them to have more than one hatchery because that's where they produce all of their units.

Queens are the only Tier 1 (units produceable after the Spawning Pool/Barracks/Gateway) anti-air, and Zerg 'Macro', or economy boosting, mechanic. They come with abilities to spread creep, and more importantly, spawn additional larvae at the hatchery every 40 seconds. Hydras have been moved up to Tier 2 (Units after Lair/Factory/Cybernetics Core), hence they come after the Queens

Void Rays are Protoss air units that are made for decimating high HP units/buildings. Their laser gains increased damage the longer it's fired, kind of like lasers in Too Human, except they don't have to recharge from unit to unit, just if they haven't fired within a 3 second timeframe. That said, lots of weaker AA units (ie. Hydralisks) decimate them, because of that charge-up time. This is why scouting is sooooo important in SC2.

Once I saw him walled in with Cannons, I had a hunch he was just going to tech to something flying, and have heard numerous times of Void Ray rushes. So since he was 'turtled' in, I took that advantage to expand again, and dominate him with an economy advantage, more drones and more production. I popped out the 2 extra queens for 4 because they can heal each other and buildings with their Transfusion ability, and they make great Anti-Air.

[SuperJay]

Heh, yeah somewhat vague, but no worries - it's an SC2 thread after all.

That's crazy that queens come before hydras now. Really weird but I can see the logic in it given the roles you explained. It's cool that they do more in SC2 (and actually have an offensive attack) - queens in SC1 seem potentially useful for more advanced strategies, but I rarely build them because they take so much more micromanagement to be effective.

And yeah, even in SC1 I've started trying to get a 2nd Hatchery up ASAP, otherwise unit production is just way too slow. I like the different mechanics that each faction has, though.

[Redenbacher09]

Yea, Queens are much more valuable now than they used to be... in SC1, if I used them at all, it was only for Parasite... stick it on something like an observer or shuttle and get a view of their whole base. Spawn Broodlings was fun too, but tedious... not nearly as fun as spawning an army of Infested Terran with the new Infestor

[PLOWKILL]

You just sign in as a guest. The login is only to connect to your Battle.net account to keep track of achievements and other stats. If you login as a guest, you can play the campaign it just won't keep track of your achievements, I believe.

I couldnt do that either... It says you must have atleast one charachter saved with BN. So if it cant read my save then it wont let me be a guest.