StarCraft 2 Articles
StarCraft 2 Gameplay Intro
29th Jun 2008 01:57 AM GMT | Leord | 0 comments
Coverage WWI 2008 >> StarCraft 2 Gameplay Intro
No Zerg bone remains untainted in this all out Zerg war.
StarCraft 2 Gameplay Intro
I have played StarCraft II before, but not in a very long time in total. The visit at Blizzard HQ in March was spent to a great extent to get all the detailed stats you can see in the Zerg units, so playing some actual SC2 was very nice. Even since I did it the first time, I have ached to do it more, it IS really like StarCraft TWO in feel and appearance.
The two random matches I did was with Zerg, as that's the race where the most things still are happening. Karune described it as the race with the most changes since it's the "newest" still, and that's true, the race is a LOT different from last time I played, when Swarm Clutches could be built over a map for no cost and would defeat any enemy. Today I tried Roach Rush which is just to make a few Zerglings just in case, and then go hardcore on Roaches. The result is devastating for the Zerg and the Terran I met.
As the Roaches regen HP so fast, you can have 2-3 Marines (or one un-upgraded Hive Queen) shooting at a single Roach, and not killing it. An opponent without Roaches on their own, and/or units that focus fire the opponent's Roaches, you can pretty much guarantee a kill. Anyone even remotely new to SC 2 will croak. Against an opponent that's met them before, things are different. However, I was lucky.
In the case of the Zerg player, he had only Zerglings and his Hive Queen, so he DID kill my Overlord but none of my Roaches (oh, well, perhaps one, details!). After hampering his economy, I had easily enough resources and units to take him out.
The Terran player seemed more experienced than me on regular StarCraft, already walled up for attack. I attacked a weak spot with Zerglings/Roaches, and lost perhaps 1 Roach where he lost tens of Marines. Of course, Terran buildings can Lift Off, which is a problem when the Roach only fires at ground units! He sailed away to start base anew while I had to dig my way through a big stone obstacle, and expand the tech tree. A Lair, and I could make Corruptors, which made his life a lot shorter. This was not a "Ok, GG" type of guy, so he floated around and started bases everywhere, and the game took another 15 minutes just to make units and to find all buildings.
The Roach is a unit that can SEEM overpowered when played at events like BlizzCon/GC Leipzig/WWI, but will probably be really balanced in the game. As they are strong against "low tier" units that lacks a player that uses focus fire, they are also weak against units that do a lot of damage. The Zerg player transformed a bunch of Zerglings into Banelings, for instance, and while they survived one impact, they died on the second.
The rest of today's SC2-activities was talking with Karune (a lot of new info will be posted from the Karune QA Session shortly) and a developer QA, where your's truly asked the first question to Rob Pardo. The rest was general or non-StarCraft-related. More on that on WorldofWar.net and Diabloii.net. Tomorrow will, besides transcribing the current material, involve two additional panels and more WoW/D3 material. Stay tuned!
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