@mizeriq: Sorry I just realized what your first quip meant. If you're basing your information off of Dawn of War of all places.

Wow.

I love that game, but it in no way accurately depicts 40k. The story comes from a host of other sources, and DoW is hardly cannonical or representative of the universe. SC, however, WAS the game and it's expansion; the books provide some extra material and that's it. Huge difference.

Garro

@mizeriq: You know I'd have an easier time arguing with you if you took a grade school lesson in grammar. Thing is, I've provided details on how you're wrong, you haven't returned the favor.

See, calling you ignorant wasn't aimless name calling, it's a fact: you're ignorant of Warhammer 40k and Starcraft. Calling you stupid, well, that's a stretch, but you do seem hell bent on defending something you don't know about, and attacking something you don't know about. It's cute.

The Protoss are generic "holier-than-thou" aliens because they have a personality that's a cheesy carbon copy of races like the Eldar, other than that they have nothing going for them.

Either you don't now what Chaos is, or what Xenos means, either way it's hilarious. Both ways, proves the contention that you don't know what you're talking about, and continually refuse to do any sort of proper reserach. I might not call you names if you could provide details about WHY you think SC is so much better than Warhammer 40k.

I don't know if you were serious about comparing 40k to a soap opera where no actions influence anyone, but again, saying that alone proves how little you know. Every story arch GW comes up with impacts the universe one way or another, every story Dan Abnett writes affects the Sabbat Worlds crusade, every piece of backstory is filled with nothing but huge impacts on the galaxy.

The C'Tan being born and corrupting gthe Necrontyr into doing their will and waging war ont he Old Ones making the galaxy practically devoid of life? That's... A huge impact. The Old Ones genetically enginering the Krork, predacessors to the Orks, in order to prevent the Necron from rising again? Man I dunno, that sounds pretty un-eventful. The Eldar becoming so decadent that they spawned an entire Chaos god? That's, huge as well. Horus becmoing corrupt, bringing HALF the Astartes legions to his side, and killing Sanguinius and nearly the Emperor? Gee ya know I thought the Plague of Unbelief and Age of Apostasy was just something GW came up with out of the blue.

Zerg are a ripoff of Aliens and Tyranids. Terrans are the bastard child of Colonial Marines (from Aliens) and Space Marines. Protoss are every single alien race with a superiority complex ever seen in SciFi. Usually, I don't care if somethings inspired form something else, but there's a difference between making a concept your own and making two-dimensional carbon copies. Blizzard did the latter, and they did it well.

Garro

I've also sat trough the game and expansions and since according to you that is enough to base your conclusions on, then I can use your obviously flawed logic to conlcude that it basicaly has no story, just some wars happening in single star systems or even single planets that have no significant effect on the millions of worlds in the human empire, like in a soap opera, nothing really happens. Wow, that's a totally original and great story... oh, yeah and chaos are generic xeno villains that hate humans!!!
Damn, and I'm the ignorant and I sound stupid? Or you mean when I present your flawed arguments just switched to the other side?
Actually, you can continue with name calling, I just won't read this topic any more.

mizeriq

@mizeriq: They adopt an heir of superiority, constantly. Hate is a little strong but you get the picture. Apparently YOU'VE never looked into the story of what you're defending.

Look if you're just going to go by surface appearances then there's no point in arguing. What makes a story or concept great isn't based solely on it's premise but largely by it's presentation. Starcraft races are cheesy because their presented in a really, cheesy way. SC's plot and dialog is consistently ripping off of every great SciFi book, movie, and show out there. It has to be one of THE most derivative stories, in existence. You have yet to prove otherwise.

Saying Horus was the best Space Marine and then he turned evil is like, the worst explanation of the Horus Heresy I've ever heard in my life. There's so much more to it that breaking it down to such a basic level and judging solely on those components is ridiculous.

Furthermore, the idea of treachery is nothing new, like you said, but some of the best stories revolve around this concept. I don't get why you're trying to tell me that SC is on par with 40k when, as I said earlier, you've clearly learned nothing about it. No, I haven't read a book, but I have read all the back story in the manual and sat through the game and expansion, which is more than enough to get the gist of Starcraft.

Saying that Starcraft has a better story and better developed races is like saying Irobot is better than GITS: Innocence; Irobot and SC are just plain as day outclassed. I don't think you know enough of what you're talking about to understand either of those, so go to wikipedia and throw another synopsis in my face.

Horus was the greatest Primarch, not the greatest Space Marine. There were 20 Primarchs, two lost to the Imperial records, and nine of them turned on the Emperor. The Primarchs are the primogenitors of the Space Marine legions, and their leaders.

They aren't, "the god's of death/whatever," they're the Chaos gods Nurgle, Khorne, Slaanesh, and Tzeentch. Nurgle, the god of rot, disease, filth, and decay. Khorne, the god of blood, bone, hate, and martial prowess. Slaanesh, the god of excess, perfection, beauty, and decadence. Tzeentch, the god of manipulation, machination, and sorcery. The Word Bearers legion were the first Astartes to commune with them.

The Dark Eldar are integral to understanding the Eldar race. The Eldar were decadent and corrupt, they had believed themselves above everything in the universe, and saught out every physical pleasure imaginable. Only a few Eldar, the Eldar we see today, realized what coming disaster would befall their race if they continued to be as decadent as they were. Eventually, their excess created Slaanesh, and it's birth cries removed the warp storms, and destroyed most of the Eldar race. The Dark Eldar, are the remnants of the pleasure cults, hiding in their own personal realm. They now believe that engaging in every depraved act imaginable will stave off the chaos gods. Like I said, it's not "just calling them dark," it's a thoughtful back story, which is again, more than anyone can say for SC.

Back to Horus: you severely underestimate the power of the Horus Heresy. It's not just slapping "chaos" onto Space Marines, it's integral to understanding the origins of the Imperium as we know it today. We would not have the things we do if it weren't for the story of the Astartes corruption.

Now let's talk Zerg. Zergling, Hormogaunt. Hydralisk, Termagaunt. Ultralisk, Carnifex. Mutalisk, Gargoyle. Cerabrate, Norn Queen (only without retarded dialogue). Broodling, Ripper. Defiler, Zoanthrope. Derivative nonsense at it's worst (the hydralisk design probably has H.R. Giger fuming).

You seriously don't know how ignorant you are about Warhammer 40k, or scifi in general. If I continued to explain the back story of the Horus Heresy and The Fall, I'd be writing pages and pages of info. Again, this is about quality of presentation, you can NOT judge a concept without taking presentation into consideration. You're the one making blind judgements about a game, you didn't even do proper research on it's information. You don't know what you're talking about, so go learn something about the universe, then come back in here and talk to me. And no more wikipedia, you sound stupid.

Garro

"It's besides the point" and then you simply add more stuff that you just made up... Protoss hate humans? What?

Horus, the best of the space marines, gets corrupted by the gods of chaos/evil/death/whatever. They are just the evil variance of the space marines with the ability to mutate and live longer.
This is not generic/cheesy/unoriginal at all!
It just happens that there's a similar story even in the bible and thousands of books/movies/games.

Warhammer is no more original than SC is, it's as simple as that.

mizeriq

@mizeriq: Dude, that is way besides the point. Remove my arguments for why Starcraft has cheesy races, and you still can't deny my evidence to support the depth of 40k races. You haven't even picked anything that's particularly 'unoriginal' about either Dark Eldar or Chaos Marines. If you can, I'd love to hear it.

Terrans Protoss and Zerg are all horribl ripoffs of classic scifi concepts, dating back years. Most Zerg are ripoffs of either Xenomorphs from Aliens or Tyranids, Terrans are about as typical space marine as you can get (and believe me I'm the LAST person whose gonna say that about SciFi soldiers), and the Protoss are your run of the mill 'mystic we hate humans' race. There isn't a single thing about any of them that distinguishes them from other Scifi. Even when they do have differences, they're extremely cheesy. Kerrigan and the Cerabrates, oh my god... They're nothing more than typical, stale, 2 dimensional "xeno villians."

Again, if you have anything to say about why the Dark Eldar or Chaos Space Marines are cheesy, or anything to specifically prove why Starcraft races aren't cheesy, please do.

Garro

@Garro: I'm sorry but complaining that I haven't read anything about wh40k, when you obviously haven't read anything about the SC universe is kind of stupid.

mizeriq

@mizeriq: If you haven't even read any backstory (we wouldn't be having this conversation if you had), then why are you so rabidly attacking 40k? Any 40k fan off the street, who knows even rudimentary details about the different races, could tell you that the Dark Eldar and Chaos Space Marines are similar in name only. Have you even looked up either backstory and compared it to Eldar and Space Marines?

Furthermore, Imperial Guard, Space Marines, and the Inquisitorial armies are so different from one another it's a farce to say they don't count because they're all humans. Go up to a 40k fan and tell them A Battle Sister is the same as a Space Marine is the same as an Imperial Guardsmen and they'll laugh at you.

Again, this goes far beyond just being "evil" versions of another army. The Dark Eldar and Chaos Space Marines are as integral to the Warhammer 40k universe as any other army, and without them nothing would feel the same. Go read the Horus Heresy series or just look up WHY we have Dark Eldar and Eldar.

40k's backstory, for every race and faction, trumps Starcraft and any SciFi fan who isn't addicted to cheese knows that. Like I said before, there's more originality in any one 40k race then all the SC races put together.

Oh wait, I just remember, Starcraft DOES have a "dark version" of one of the races. The Dark Templar! What's the key difference? They're "shadowy outcasts." whooooo, I almost got blown away from the rich detailed narrative surrounding THAT faction!

Go read Eisenhorn, L3t the Galxy Burn, or Gaunts Ghosts and quit your SC story fanboyism.

Garro

@Garro: 2 out of 11 races? There aren't 11 races, because half of them are humans, maybe blizz should've created the "marine" race and the "firebat" race and then add an evil version of one of them, so they can finally have as much and as original as warhammer is!

mizeriq

@mizeriq: Oh yeah 'cause you know, two evil versions of races out of 11, not even including factions, is unoriginal. I'd rather have Chaos and Dark Eldar than any race out of Starcraft. Those two are exponentially better devloped than Terran, Protoss, and Zerg put together. That isn't fanboyism, read the books, codex's, and rule books and glance at 25 years of history.

@popowrx: Well, Starcraft as a whole is a joke. I mean, gameplay's top notch, but everything else is comedically cheesy and blatantly ripping off of all the 'good' scifi. Anyway, Warhammer 40k actually has comedy. Read, Caiphus Cain and small bits in Gaunts Ghosts.

@Typhus: You know it. I'd love to see the Zerg's response to Bio-Titans, Norn Queens, and crushing numbers.

Garro

Thanks god...thanks!

VeNoMmx

Oh man, the other races are SCREWED!

Actually, not entirely. But the thought of my entire fleet of starships being turned against each other is terrifying.

Codexx

@Logician:
they've already toned it down. the mothership in the original video is way more powerful than the current one. no more black hole, for one.

willyolio

@Sobe318: Actually, i meant hard counter to units not entire race. as in the hard counter to say mutalists would be corsairs, the hard counter to dragoons would be seige tanks.

soft counters in this sense would be that marines can own zerglings hydras etc and similarly they can be owned vice versa depending on mixes.

The reason why I endorse soft counters is that there would be more micro as a result. Hard counters simply reduce the fighting to blow for blow, running back and forward and flanking do a little to help but fighting a hard counter means you've pretty much lost unless they cant fight.

@bosintang: It depends on where you look and play. For the most part going mechs have evolved to become one of the standard strategies of terrans as it provides the most coverage. But for the most part marines have been used throughout the game but are rarely done so in a 1v1 simply for the fact that it is not so cost effective (unfortunately this is where all the pro games end up so we rarely see occurences of mass marines anymore :P)

for games like 2v2 3v3 ffa or 2v2v2v2 etc marines are actually very common from start to finish often.

pyropetey

Starcraft ended up being one of the most balanced RTS ever I think. Blizzard is a very good comapany and will balance this one out as well.

Spaz569

@Sobe318: Marines/Medic alone wasn't the hard counter against a zerg, you needed firebats + tanks etc. As a Terran player I think this unit sheet + gameplay trailer showed we have to micro harder than ever.

unless they went lurkers, marine+medic was a good early tactic vs zergs, even wo/ firebats, who i rarely saw being really used.
but marines were rarely used vs protoss or other terrans, nor were they used very much in late game, even vs zergs.

bosintang

@Logician: Unbalanced and Blizzard does not compute.

Unless you make a game that will eventually break, a la WC3, let the original SC be a testament to balancing RTS.

Fyren

I'll probably have to kill myself if this goes the way of StarCraft: Ghost.

Legendary GIR

To those who are asking when will the game be released, teh answer is never. Blizzard will develop this game forever, it'll be a living legend, just forget about it... XD But seriously, I hope they make the long wait worth, because I'm itching to play the game...

goliathvv

@pyropetey: The race trailers are meant to show off each unit's abilities so they don't show the opponent backing off or microing against the army. They probably didn't even have the proper counter.

Marines/Medic alone wasn't the hard counter against a zerg, you needed firebats + tanks etc. As a Terran player I think this unit sheet + gameplay trailer showed we have to micro harder than ever.

Trying to dodge banelings while lurker spikes are popping from the ground with tons of zerglings rushing at you... sounds like a lot of fun to me :)

Sobe318

@aequitus: The intial game pre release and post release even is almost always IMBA. For the most part thats actually similar for every game in existence.

@bosintang: OMG O_O ... burrowed ultralisks... im so happpyyy >< *tear*

lol, I think the general zerg direction is "ok" from the video the infested barracks seems IMBA ... since its also situational (only ZvT) i doubt it'll be anything more than a single player novelty.

and BTW think of roaches as regenerators from RE; i think the idea is a good one, it actually gives the game alot of dynamics.

Perhaps the thing I'm fearing most about this game is it's direction of catering to hard counters too much and not so much soft counters... marines look drastically underpowered.. =/

In the same sense I don't have a feeling of microing an army to the extent of SC... granted that's probably from just looking at the video.

pyropetey

Yay! I can't wait for more unbalanced crap from Blizzard.

aequitus

@Heartwork:
You mean the Protoss Mothership? Yeah, i saw that one in a video a long time ago.
Pardon me for being a pessimistic bastard, but i predict ginourmous costs and reload/cooldown times for that one unit.

I wanna see what kind of superunit the Terrans have.
And I am NOT looking forward to being rushed by a million Roaches with ranged weapon support.

Logician

I AM SO EXCITED!!!!! Not since the days of Warcraft II have I been lusting over a RTS so bad...

beckerist

[www.gameshot.net]

go to the page to see some conceptual art of each zerg unit and some in game zerg clip.

bosintang

@popowrx: It's easy, just imagine Chaos Terran, Dark Terran, Dark Chaos Terran as well as Chaos Dark Terran and now you have a whole lot of races as the extremely original W40K!

mizeriq

this looks fake to me

Crawl to China

Haha, I find the Warhammer folk to be amusing. Though the influences are quite noticeable, I find the Starcraft Universe to be much more forgiving then the W40k, which is probably why the Zerg are less terrifying then the Tyranids, Necrons, Dark Eldar, Chaos Marines, etc.

I do like both universes and Starcraft has more room for humor (dark or otherwise) then W40k.

I couldn't imagine a Starcraft with that many races though, haha.

popowrx

I was hoping that zerg would be able to infest protoss structures as well. Also, I'm very curious about the new corruptor unit and the base defense queen.

BossMonk

@docacola: WHOA! Who spiked your morning coffee with optimism?

Krytha

Zerg swarms slaughtering Terrans and Protoss by the thousands...sniff...its a beautiful sight

Avinash_Tyagi

@Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.: Looks like they made it spit out units for a limited time, as in no cost in return for free units... but I could be reading that wrong.

Neer'mo

whats up with this "can temporarily create" things when infesting stuff. you used to be able to infect a command center and it was yours till they blew it up....

Gantz: Your Trusted Friend in Science.

My personal preference... I am not a fan of the WC3 playstyle that they are borrowing from. Neutral buildings we just no good. They made for good multiplayer mods and such - I just hope Blizzard does this right. I would really hate to see them borrow anything from WC's Undead...

Hopefuly this does not feel anything like WC3...

Neer'mo

New pants please.

Machete_Bear

@Lemming: I think it is a sign of the mature Warhammer veteran not to point out the obvious rip-offs.

Also, the Zerg will never stack up against the sheer destructive might of the Tyranids. Orbital Capillary Vessels Sucking Up Biomass FTW.

splines

If you guys are interested the korean website has a 9 min gameplay trailer of the zerg units. [www.gameshot.net]

Also they have artwork posted of each unit in the following order.

Zergliner, baneling, queen, hydralisk, roach, mutalisk, lurker, infestor, corruptor and ultralisk.

nakchunsa

@Jack Frost: sometime after Sony FINALLY releases Home

Seiven

@tei: You got that right - Tyranids make the zerg look like teething puppies.

Typhus

Yay for Tyranids! I mean Zergs!

Lemming

@darthmole12: We saw pics of Kerrigan already. She looks the same more or less.

KirbyMorph

@darthmole12: The name "roach" seems fitting... have you ever tried to kill one?
I fear any bug that can take a full-on stomp and still attempt to run.

the-red-terror

Gametrailers.com has a trailer that shows off the individual units and what they can do. It's also up on the youtubes as well.

Phlycheez

@2SBs: I don't know about the cheat thing, but you could move your Command Center closer to the mineral field, getting it faster. Hydralisks spawned way too fast as well. Lotsa weird stuff. They keep some of the glitches though like Lurker hold. Blizzard pays good attention to balance issues.

alecpyron

@darthmole12: I hear you on the balancing through patches thing. I remember getting ling rushed all the time when the spawn pool used to cost 150 mins.

Alos heard from a friend that you could use single player cheats during multiplayer (can anyone confirm this?)

Knowing blizzard they will release patches as soon as someone finds a glitch in a game that will throw the game off balance. I used to love floating drones.

2SBs

@splines: fingers crossed!!!

DefenderShip

This reminds me the movie "Screamers" for no reason. Have you see the model 5?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screamers_(film)
screamers01.JPG

That is a good film (IMHO) based on good Sci-fi:
"Second Variety" by Philip K. Dick

Good Sci-Fi can create terror.

The Ultralisk look to me like a "Undead Mammoth". And seems that all units of "Starcraft 2" are "Second Version".

Is somewhat sad, because most Tyranids looks much more alien-ish, and more terrorfull. IMHO Warhammer40k make better visuals for aliens.

tei

@darthmole12: Could this mean... bigger Kerrigan bewbs?

splines

@Logician: Well, I'm sure the game will be very imbalanced in beta, it was that way with Warcraft 3 and TFT at least. The game will probably still be somewhat imbalanced on release as well, but nothing that patching can't fix. Keep in mind that even the original Starcraft wasn't perfectly balanced, it was only some time after Brood War where they got to the point where everything worked well.

@kiigan: It is a little odd that they attached "Swarm" in front of Guardian. It seems like the only difference is that they have an ability to spawn swarmlings to help fight temporarily. And while it may be confusing that the "Queen" in SC2 is completely different than the original, in the context of its overall placement in the Zerg army makes sense. I wonder if this means that Kerrigan will also look substantially different? As for Infestor instead of Defiler, I think that makes sense. It's got a couple Defiler abilities for sure, but it really is quite different. The only real problem I have is "Roach". I mean, seriously, they can't come up with a better Zerg unit name than that? Though maybe it does look exactly like a roach, who knows...


As for the list of units, it seems legit enough. It seems like a large part of their changes is increased mobility, though it's interesting that apparently they're taking away the detector ability from regular Overlords. They already took it away from the regular Terran turrets. I wonder if the Protoss will lose it on their Photon Cannons as well? Maybe they are trying to increase the chances of being able to pull of a cloaked unit surprise attack.

darthmole12

Aw, and here I though we'd get to morph ultralisks into something. Nuclear Baneling detected?

Moonshadow101

@kiigan:
Bah. Overly expensive. They're really only good against tanks or buildings...

GruntyBalboa

*looks at Roaches*

Oh great, because what the Zerg really needed were fucking regenerating units.

splines

Images: [www.gameshot.net]

rupy

I wonder... I kind of remember Blizzard saying that only the Protoss get a super unit to reflect their quality about quantity feel...

could be outdated information though

Gremory

I wonder if the new Queen is the equivalent to the Terran and Protoss super units (Mothership, etc), or if Blizzard is waiting to reveal something else...

Hrist

@GruntyBalboa:

Ultralisks were always worth buying! Great damage sponges :)

kiigan

I don't see why they'd re-use the name "Queen" in a different context - that's just confusing. Also I'd really prefer them to keep the names for units that have the same function as before. The Infestor is clearly and evolved Defiler - so why not call it that? Why not call the Swarm Guardian a "Guardian" to keep it simple?

Still, some interesting stuff. The new Overlords sounds fantastic, and I'm curious to see how the Nydus Worm can be balanced to met it more fair.

kiigan

It does seem like there's a lot more abilities that focus on troop movement, from this list--even building movement, with Deep Tunnel and the Overlord being able to generate creep. The Protoss can also warp around using pylons, and I'm sure Terrans, original king of mobile bases, will see some improvements too.

It feels like they're making the battlefield more dynamic. I guess there wasn't enough to focus on last time; pros better work on upping their clicks per minute.

celery

Seems like they combined some units and shifted around other abilities. The Infested Terran looks like a slower Terran Marine, while the new version of the IT, the Baneling, is evolved from a Zergling. Defiler is mixed with aspects of the Science Vessel, creating the Infestor. Queen is a beast, Ultra has been made to something worth buying, and the Zerg seem to have more units that focus on either creating or moving units...

This'll be interesting,eh?

GruntyBalboa

@Logician: I highly doubt Blizzard would do something like that. They have been doing so well in the past with making every race balanced. Lets just pray that Blizzard doesn't screw up. Now then time to start beefing up my computer to play this. God I hope I don't lose my job when this game comes out.

Balance_In_Life (PSN)

kekekekeke

the_dudefather

@Logician: ...have you seen the Mothership?

Heartwork

I can't wait until they get all the fluff/animations/pictures up, like they do for a lot of the terran and protoss units already.

Heartwork

@Jack Frost: Late 2008/early 2009

mizeriq

It gives me the creeps just reading about how powerful the Zergs have become in Starcraft 2.
Just hope it doesn't become unbalanced.

Logician

@Jack Frost: Knowing Blizzard, probably sometime in Spring of 2011.

docacola

Interesting roster of units.. seems like they have focused more on making the Zerg able to infect and control downed units.

Looking forward to see a horde of zergs rumbling down the hill.

phatseejay

sweet so when is the game gonna be released?

Jack Frost