As many of you may know, this past week marked the start of closed beta testing for Starcraft 2. I know many of you are interested as I remember playing with some of you in the past. I thought I'd give some of my thoughts on the beta and use this topic to entertain questions anyone has.

The game overall:

• It flows very nicely and is about as fast if not a slight bit faster than Starcraft 1. The game is very much a macro-oriented game with low/mid tier units comprising the bulk of your army, just like Starcraft 1.
• Graphics are nice, although higher quality graphics tend to muddle battles with unnecessary death animations. Because of improved pathfinding AI, the armies tend to clump a lot more which makes it harder to see what's going on.
• Unit selection is capped at 250 units per control group, which only matters if you're going 200/200 supply of straight Zerglings. Subgroup tab selection is in from Warcraft 3 and works similarly.
• Each race starts with 6 workers - minerals return 5 at a time and gas returns 4 at a time, but the improved worker pathfinding and 2 geysers per base make up for the lower resource count. Two geysers per base also opens up more ideas for tech patterns.
• Vespene gas no longer returns at a diminished rate when a geyser depletes. Once it's gone, it's gone.
• Fog of War doesn't completely blind you anymore - you can see terrain underneath it.

Terran:

• Marauders are really good. Like... REALLY good. They tear through so much stuff and the slow is just icing on the cake.
• The Orbital Command is useful and MULEs are a good boost to your economy - unfortunately having to give up a Scan to call down a MULE is kind of annoying.
• Reapers are amazing at base harassment because of how much damage they can deal to buildings and workers really quickly.
• Terran also have the best air - Banshees are mobile and destroy ground, and Vikings are amazingly versatile.
• It seems Terran benefits the most from having an early expansion - completely the opposite of the way it was in SC1. Calling down more MULEs is really good.

Protoss:

• Sentries are amazing. Tier 1 casters that do soooo much. Force Field and Guardian Shield are instrumental at winning early battles vs. the other races.
• Stalkers are okay too - not nearly as staple units as Dragoons are, but they serve their purpose well. Blink is also fun.
• Chrono Boost, the Nexus ability, gives Protoss some decent options as far as tech is concerned.
• There is almost zero reason to not research Warp Gates and use Warp Gates over normal Gateways. Actually, there probably isn't any reason.
• Protoss has very weak anti-air right now, unfortunately. Their ground army is amazing though - Colossi, Zealots and Sentries tear through anything that's not a Thor.

Zerg:

• Zergs actually benefit the least from having an early expansion now thanks to the Queen. Spawning additional larva is amazing.
• Banelings are fantastic and do a buttload of damage really quickly. Refer to this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qa6-BNDSlA#t=2m15
• The Nydus Worm will win a game really quickly if it goes unscouted. Roaches and Hydralisks streaming into your base is not something you want to deal with.
• Zerg has the best anti-air in the game right now - Hydras are amazing units allaround and Corruptors do their job perfectly.
• No Lurker in the current build as it's being reworked.

Feel free to ask any major questions you have (or to play some games if you also have the beta)

The first balance patch has hit the beta servers.



My personal opinion -
Orbital Command, Viking and Reaper changes are all good.
Protoss Gateway nerf seems unnecessary. Obs speed upgrade is nice, and I'm glad to have Recall back.
Zergs may or may not have a reason to build an Infestor - I don't really play them much so I don't know.

I wish they would have looked at the Protoss Phoenix and the Zerg Roach a little bit because I think they're a bit underpowered and overpowered respectively.

Second balance patch is out.



My personal opinion -
T_T to the Protoss nerf again. PvT is really hard with these changes.
Glad that the Reaper got nerfed a little bit.
The Mothership is painfully weak now, in my opinion.
No opinion on the Corruptor changes.
The Terran changes makes Terran without a doubt the strongest race early game.

So far i'm reaaally liking the speed boost that protoss get. My only qualms is that protoss are very vulnerable to early attacks from terran (I really hate that reactor add-on they get). Kinda hard to really get into it because it's been years since i've last played starcraft at all, so the learning curve against the online community is really steep.

I'd really like to see Protoss get some buffs to resist early attacks by terrans, the boost is nice but its too damn hard to pump out enough units to stop a group of 15-20 marines from destroying you within the first 15 minutes. Zerg I have no problems with.

More Protoss nerfs, hooray. Although I don't like the implication for PvT, Zealots do seem way too strong against Zerglings and this brings it back down to more Starcraft 1 like levels.
The Terran buffs make absolute sense, because before the patch they just arbitrarily had longer upgrade times than the other two races.

A bit belated, but how much fun is the game compared to SC1? I'm having low expectations after seeing Kerrigan in stilletos and the Terrans with giant robot units.

A lot! Both amazon and gamestop are giving away beta keys if you preorder, and the game is a ton of fun. I'm still learning terran builds and trying to suck less but if anyone wants to play I'm Meld.sitting

I actually have an extra beta key if anyone happens to want one and can't get out to Gamestop or order from Amazon.

Oh good god please don't tell me you've had that for months or something

<.< I didn't think I would. Turns out I know a lot of people (myself included) who aren't all that interested in Starcraft.

I also didn't think to post about it on here until just the other day, lol. ^^;;

I'd love that key.

It's possible that I have one extra, but we'll have to see. I can't remember how many I've given out, but I had several. :x

name/indentifier is Meld.sitting, if anyone of you want to play. I'm stuck at the top of the bronze league right now, can't seem to get into silver. I'm up for 1v1, 2v2, whatever

I love Starcraft Almost as much as I love Canada... The fact that I am Canadian of course has nothing to do with it..

Its one of the only PC games I own that only seems to increase in value and enjoyment over the years. Now I just have to wait for this beta to finally finish so I can buy it!