[HotS] Heart of the Swarm has launched.

[Zeph]

I'm installing my copy right now. Gonna stream my play through of the campaign for fun.
I'd offer trial keys, but the trial cards that came with my copy are for Wings of Liberty and not HotS.

I'll update with a link to the stream after I get it set up.

[Tnnaas]

Woah, I forgot about this, and I still haven't even finished Brood War. Seriously need to get back in the saddle. Starcraft was the greatest when I was growing up.

EDIT: Though I should probably buy Starcraft II first. :v:

[DarkHalo003]

I watched Liquid NonY (Liquid Tyler) stream the campaign yesterday. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Makes me wonder if they're going for an SC3, since the ending is kind of open in the direction of Legacy of the Void.

As far as my buying it, I'll have to wait till I get the cash for it. Hopefully, by the time I install it, any bugs will be fixed and the game's MP will have more balance than that of the Beta. It's a lot better than WoL though in terms of gameplay IMO. I am REALLY excited for Legacy of the Void either way.

[Kornman00]

I thought they tossed the idea of doing LotV, and instead went for those side missions in WoL to satisfy protoss butt huggers?

[Zeph]

I watched Liquid NonY (Liquid Tyler) stream the campaign yesterday. Pretty cool if you ask me.

Makes me wonder if they're going for an SC3, since the ending is kind of open in the direction of Legacy of the Void.

As far as my buying it, I'll have to wait till I get the cash for it. Hopefully, by the time I install it, any bugs will be fixed and the game's MP will have more balance than that of the Beta. It's a lot better than WoL though in terms of gameplay IMO. I am REALLY excited for Legacy of the Void either way.


I thought they tossed the idea of doing LotV, and instead went for those side missions in WoL to satisfy protoss butt huggers?

Nah, looks like they're going right into LotV. This is a pretty clear cut case of Character 1 in game one, Character 2 in game 2, and Character 3 showing up in games one and two weaving bits and pieces of forshadowing, lore, and misdirection for his ultimate role in game 3 that pulls everyone together (because you know it wouldn't happen if he didn't try cause no one seems to care). Aside from that, there are three loose ends to tie up that lead right into Protoss story.

Other than that, I was going to stream but I wound up getting disappointing and stopped tweaking stream settings between levels.
HotS isn't going to seem very epic for many people compared to what we got with WoL.
The story is predominantly within the individual levels of the game. The stuff from WoL like Tychus and Jimmy chattin it up in the bar just doesn't happen.
That's really the downside to this game from a design decision. By making Kerrigan such a powerful unit that you have in damn near every level you reinforce visually how much of a badass she is, but you lose the opportunity to develop her character in that manner through dialog and interaction with the other characters in the game. I almost just flat out quick playing when the one character in the game that was being done properly with mutual character development alongside Kerrigan through dialogue wound up trying to kill her in game, died, and was never touched upon again aside from a 'oh you knew he was going to kill me right'/'of course I did thats what we do babe' thing.

Compare this to Jimmy, Swann, Tychus, and the science kid. They were playable in game as heroes, and the most you got out of them were in character quips about mission objectives. Supplemental to the mission were after action reports, opinions, and thoughts of the future developments that could take place because of the mission.
HotS: I AM THE QUEEN OF BLADES I AM RIGHT AND YOU ARE WRONG DO IT MORE POWER MORE POWER MORE POWER MORE POWER MORE POWER LOOK AT THIS POWER OH SHIT MORE POWER ALRIGHT TIME TO GO TO KORHOL.

[n00b1n8R]

hots campaign >>> wol campaign hth

ps raynor dies lol

[Kornman00]

zerg r lame, terran all the way hth

[ODX]

Terran are bullshit. All they need is MMM. Protoss supemecy.

Will have to pick up this game sometime, mainly for the campaign though so I'll probably wait for the price to drop something reasonable.

[DarkHalo003]

Terran is the strongest race in Multiplayer right now because of Hellbats and Medivac Boost. Zerg is second strongest because of Swarm Host, Viper, and various changes to multiple units. Protoss is weakest currently because only Stargate units were added and redesigned. Though Skytoss with HT/Archon is borderline OP against Zerg currently, Gateway units are simply not durable enough to fight against the new units like the Hellbat and Swarm Host, which is terribad because individually durable units is a Protoss staple.

[Zeph]

Wow, would you look at that. All those complaints about EA keeping Sim City people from playing single player if the servers don't work. Guess I'll just play some HotS.

Battle.net offline? Well, I did notice achievements being messed with yesterday so I guess they're fixing some things. Guess I'll just click the play offline button and.....

what the fuck

why is the play offline button greyed out!

[DarkHalo003]

Wow, would you look at that. All those complaints about EA keeping Sim City people from playing single player if the servers don't work. Guess I'll just play some HotS.

Battle.net offline? Well, I did notice achievements being messed with yesterday so I guess they're fixing some things. Guess I'll just click the play offline button and.....

what the fuck

why is the play offline button greyed out!
It's funny because as soon as you posted this the servers turned back on for the U.S. Unless of course you're referring to the campaign and not the game in general.

Also, there have been achievement glitches, so those were turned off momentarily.

[Zeph]

Couldn't play any of the game at all. Play as guest button missing, play offline button greyed out.

[DarkHalo003]

Couldn't play any of the game at all. Play as guest button missing, play offline button greyed out.
Weird. I could play WoL just fine after 2:45PM. It could have just been HotS, but that's probably a result of heavy server traffic. EA was just being fucking stupid.

[Phobias]

So that protoss ship that gets overrun by the single larva injected in the protoss chick, whatever happened to that? Was the broodmother on that ship one of the ones that helped the final assault? I didn't pay attention to names and it's been bugging me .

[Zeph]

So that protoss ship that gets overrun by the single larva injected in the protoss chick, whatever happened to that? Was the broodmother on that ship one of the ones that helped the final assault? I didn't pay attention to names and it's been bugging me .
Pretty sure this was left open so Protoss could have a legitimate Zerg threat in next expansion.
That brood mother simply lost the ability to communicate with Kerrigan (either by defect or by mutation caused by the hyperdrive exploding [which by the way, how are they going to go anywhere with that thing down]). You'll notice that Kerrigan was able to communicate with every brood mother left in the swarm by the end of the game so it stands to reason that 'wee little fella' is off tearin up the night while Kerrigan does what she says she's going to do at the end of the game.

I'm thinking it'll play a larger part in the narrative since Kerrigan spun the DNA herself in a way that left Abathur going wtf. Between that and the brain changes Kerrigan made to the Brood Mother picked up on Char, I think it's a good indication of how the storytellers are going to try and portray the zerg by the end of the series.

Either way, that was the most fun mission I've ever played.

[DarkHalo003]

Watching that mission was a lot of fun. I can't wait to play the campaign.

I really am super excited for LotV. I'll probably go through Brood War soon just to play the Protoss missions.

[n00b1n8R]

yeah the stealth mission was a nice change.
Finished the game, much better than wol. Wish she'd let jim put the bullet in his face though.

is the artifact destroyed now or does jim own it? it was much bigger in WoL too lmao

[n00b1n8R]

What happens if you side with Nova over Tosh in WoL?

In HOTS (I sided with tosh) nova tells jim she's not going to let him slip away and captures him at the end of the mission kerrigan escapes to the hyperion in. Tosh is mentioned once as an option for getting jim out but kerrigan needs her boo too bad to wait.

[Dwood]

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1sewgo/total_biscuit_is_hosting_a_sc2_tournament_in/

12 bit coin reward to the winner. Cool.