Ok, I'm totally geeking out. It has been years. YEARS.

Who's with me?

Starcraft 2

Two more days... I've been counting the days for months! Yay!

I'll probably never see any of you ever again.

I know I'll be gone for a while (only logging in to get the last of the bonus lessons, most likely)

I doubt my computer can handle it (it freezes sometimes on portal ), but someday, when I become less horribly cheap, I shall acquire a new computer, and you all can hand me my ass in yet another game Its definitely on my want list though

World cannot express my excitement or joy.



However, it will more than likely be a while before I am able to get the game, and play it.

Tomorrow I get my copy, the next day is my birthday.

Sweet.

The local game store called me today asking if I wanted it so they could put a copy aside I go there too much...

I have it! It's awesome! And I won a free giant poster at the midnight launch!

Whee!

I was gonna buy it as a matter of course, but while researching it, it turns out that Europeans and most Asians are banned from multiplayer (or may as well be - I can't play with any of my American or Asian friends). So if I do get it it'll be, uh, from certain websites, for the single player only. At least it'll be fun playing with the updated protoss after all these ye-OH WAIT, we only get one race in the singleplayer.

*thoroughly unimoressed with post-merger Blizzard*

So I'm sure quite a few of you are playing it? Why don't they have an iPad version (lol)?

I hear it's basically the same game as Starcraft I, with updated graphics and new units. Is that accurate? Am I the only one who isn't interested in playing it if it's that similar?

Fiance bought it. Apprantly, he bought it so he could play with a friend of his long distance (his form of staying in touch?) They used to play the first one all the time. He seems to like it. Looks the same to me, though there are differences in units and such, it would seem. Seems shiny, but I can't play rts's really well at all.

While, we're linking TVTropes, might as well go here too!

I'm not really into the multi-player aspect of RTS games. I've dabbled with them, but when other human beings are involved they seem to boil down to a brutal regime of unforgiving build orders, frenetic micromanagement and, occasionally, dirty tricks. I find it stressful rather than relaxing and fun.

Purportedly, the Terran single-player campaign is fairly short, and I'm not sure how much the "expansions" will cost ($40? $60?). I'm not keen to pay $140-180 for three ten-hour single-player campaigns. It's the same reason I don't buy the first-person shooters everyone seems to love: They're primarily multi-player games, unlike Duke Nukem et al.

On top of that, the DRM is reportedly draconian in StarCraft II which, historically, has been far more detrimental to honest customers than pirates. Amazon.com's customer rating for StarCraft II is 3 out of 5 stars (from 407 customer reviews) solely because of annoying DRM and required Internet activation even for single-player. Frankly, I don't blame people for being upset about that.

Even so, the game does look and sound great. If some friends and/or family members (my sister and her boyfriend are likely candidates) get the game and want to play it, I might get it, too, so that we can play together.

is this one of those you can buy them over amazon.com to get a US code or a even if you get an american copy you still can't play if you are from europe thing

Couldn't tell you either way, not willing to try it out!

That's possible, but they might instead use IP addresses to segregate by region, like YouTube and adultswim.com do.

Okay, I researched StarCraft II's DRM measures a bit more, and here's what I discovered: For the single-player campaign, you must activate the game via the Internet and register an account (using a CD key, I imagine) at Battle.net. Once registered, you must log in to play, and SCII checks in with Battle.net periodically. If your Internet connection drops (for example), you get booted to the main login screen. This is for single-player campaigns, mind you. It's also impossible to maintain more than one saved game, so you can't really let your little brother, best friend or aunt play your copy of StarCraft II without messing with your progress. There's apparently a "guest login" feature which doesn't require the Internet, and it does allow you to save the game (one slot), but you can't access Battle.net features or achievements with it. Later on, after a number of special units and bonus maps are released on Battle.net — which is apparently Blizzard's plan — you won't be able to access them using the guest login option.

The only upside to this is that, like World of Warcraft, you can log into your account on your friend's computer (if they have StarCraft II installed) and play using your own progress and statistics... of course, you could already do that with StarCraft I without all the inconveniences, by exporting your saved games or just logging into Battle.net away from home.

On the multi-player side, it's about the same as before except that Blizzard has deliberately left LAN play out of the game.

So basically, a handful of deliberate and annoying DRM measures that offer legitimate customers no advantages, and will ultimately do very little to discourage piracy. Oh yes, and as per usual, the game's designed to strongly discourage used/after-market sales.

I just finished the campaign. Loved it! It is Starcraft all over again, but that's what I wanted! Don't fix what ain't broke, and that's exactly what Blizzard did. There's some fun new units (I must say, the Odin was hilarious amounts of ridiculous. Odin + 4 wraiths + 2 sci vessels = delicious goodness and all I needed for the whole scenario), they've allowed a bit of leeway in mission order and some minor scenario choices that give some small replay value, and the staging areas allow for some character and story expansion. All in all it was quite a lot of fun.

I will say the ending has me a bit baffled, though now I'm wondering if Kerrigan is supposed to be semi-zerg semi-human, and lead the swarm on its 'proper' path and combine with protoss to become the true Xel'Naga reincarnated race, as was intended - the 'heart of the swarm' referencing a return of guidance/morality/goodness/life/love/"heart" to the Zerg by Kerrigan becoming part-human again. Unfortunately, there wasn't much resolution on Duran's character, but there wasn't too much room for it - though I'm fairly certain the hybrids you see in various scenarios are Duran's babies - so maybe we'll see it in the next expansion.

As to the security measures Blizzard took, I think, as time progresses, we'll see these sort of DRM implementations becoming even more common. It's simply the nature of how things will progress - I've found them to be simple enough to handle, and it's not had any real effect on me.