I saw the game at a buddies and was thoroughly unimpressed. For all the fanfare and hype it was just Starcraft I with prettier images and a bigger price tag.

The established fanbase couldn't really deal with anything that wasn't just brood wars with updated graphics. It's been normalised back to that pretty consistently.

It actually could have been better but they had way too much baggage to deal with holding them back.

Well, I'm never sure what people were expecting, honestly. All my friends who were Starcraft fanatics (we used to invade the school's computer lab during our PC classes and during summer school and just play it for hours) are pretty pleased - because, yea, we got Starcraft with updated graphics. Frankly, though, what more do you want? It was a fantastic game that was borderline perfection in the late 90s. There's not a whole lot to perfect!

I think making it a wholly different game experience, or even a marginally different game experience would have dissappointed many of the original fans. Starcraft II is for Starcraft fans, it is a Starcraft game.

It was never really borderline perfection though, just very good and the best of its time. The ancient UI for example. Fans clamoured for Blizzard to remove any improvements to the UI on the basis that "it removes skill" and ultimately a few structural artefacts were never changed because of this misplaced notion.

Ok to answer my own question, if you buy the digital edition of the game through battlenet you can select the region you wish to play in. Also selecting NA makes the price in dollars instead of euro (= a little bit cheaper )

If there're any games that have the skill notion attached to them, Starcraft is one of them. It's practically a competitive sport.

Only in Korea!

Yeah. The problem is that there are fairly distinct components to that skill, not all of which need to be encouraged. It would "take more skill" if you couldn't see the build time on units, or could only control one unit at a time, or had to micro each worker to get every specific pile of crystals, but all of those things would make for a annoying game and improving the interface for accessibility so people can all get to playing the real game is an important priority.

There are a bunch of changes analogous to that, but because a lot of the badness is grandfathered in the fans wouldn't let go of it, and we are where we are today - at a sad pile of wasted potential.

It's not Blizzard, it's this dick.

I've noticed that a lot of people put quite a bit of blame onto his shoulders for some of changes after the merger.

Proof that Blizzard has nitwits working for them.. Starcraft was a formula for success and it was sitting there on the counter for them to mix again and they messed up on an astounding level. The end of the Terran campaign was disappointing, the game doesn't even feel like real Starcraft (in Platinum league, rushing was/is still rewarded), the game has virtually nothing interesting in it and yet even for lacking the feel of Starcraft, on the outside, it just looks like the same game pasted over with a new job of paint.

I'm not spending 180 dollars total to play a game that uses Starcraft's name to sell itself. No thanks.

My understanding is the storyline was actually planned since Starcraft itself was made. It's definitely been fleshed out more recently, but it's always been intended for it to go the route it is. I can't say I'm entirely pleased (I'll agree that it has a much 'softer' tone than the previous games), but what did we expect? For them to annihilate Kerrigan and the swarm? Or that the swarm would consume all? It was pretty obvious something had to change, otherwise the story would be a bit bland and greatly predictable. Maybe I'm just a lot more forgiving than some?

Given what's been stated to be the topic of the next expansion, my presumption is that it didn't entirely do what they thought, but rather it freed her from the inherent madness of her transformation. She's still the same zerg Queen of Blades, but it's old Kerrigan, mentally.

I'm certainly going to be waiting in line for the next expansion set!

I need to stop reading this thread. I wants to play.

the beta has been out for a while you nubs

Just a note: If you're using the digital downloader and are experiencing an over-the-top, annoying download time, try disabling the peer-to-peer option in the downloader's preferences.

There's a pretty good reason for that. Mainly that he's an insensitive money-grubbing scumbag.

EDIT: Nevermind, my bad. Although the names were close...

Normally I'd spread the blame a bit, but it's like he enjoys being the lightning rod for anger. If you're willing to say the things he has said in public, either you love taking crap for other people's mistakes, or you revel in your decisions and like taunting people.

Yeah no kidding, p2p was like 13 hours without being able to play lusternia and when I disabled it it was 3 hours and no lag on lusternia.