Your thoughts?

My initial thoughts:

I love the terran design, style, units, and music. I don't care for some of the style and unit liberties they've taken with zerg and protoss.

Zooming. I like it but i wish you could zoom out more. no matter what resolution you play at, everthing is the same size. I guess this is to keep it fair for matches involving someone who has a great resolutoin capability vs. someone who does not.

Graphics and Video requirements. Graphics on the Ultra/high settings and at max resolution (1900x1200) are amazing but not so much on lower settings. My machine will run with everything maxed but not without melting my video card... =(

Playing even in my preferred resolution (1680x1050) causes my gpu temp to skyrocket 100+ degrees C, even with everything set to medium. (Nvidia GeForce 9800M GTS 512MB) I've NEVER seen my gpu temp this high ever. Obviously, this is completely unnacceptable, and i'm gonna try upgrading my gfx drivers to see if it makes any difference. 'Till then i play 1400x900/medium settings, and my temps stay below 77 degrees C.

Updating. downloading new patches is gay since it's deadly slow, and no matter what ports i open as well what potentially-conflicting programs i turn off, i get the "your shit appears to be behind a firewall" message. I mean, it still updates it's just really slow.

Playing offline. Pretty cool i can play offline with AI using a cracked offline launcher. I use StarCraft II - Offline Launcher v2.3.1.

That's all for now! what do you think?

I think it's superb, but something tells me it won't share the same success with Starcraft1.

'Till then i play 1400x900/medium settings, and my temps stay below 77 degrees C.

Hah, I can only play this max res: 1280x1024(which my AtiRadeon HD4850 runs fine...). At least, until I by a 24 inch monitor(23 or 24, that's what I'm aiming for, I also need this size for editing programs like blender)

As far as gameplay changes and racial updates from the first game goes, I really like where Starcraft II has gone. Feels a lot more varied than the first game.

Graphics look good, but they can't really compare in visual quality to other games (hell, Company of Heroes and World in Conflict look better.) Graphical excellence has never been Blizzard's game, but they still create great visual styles, providing fitting atmospheres to all their games. Think WoW: kind of looks like ass, but the cartoony style makes it passable -- even durable. WoW still looks acceptable, even though it's soon 6 years since release. I think this is mainly because of the cartoony style (admittedly, they do update the graphics continuously, but the changes are mostly cosmetic). Compare this to how other games, like Everquest 2, look today: it's just ass.

I can't really comment on the competitive element of the game, I've only played the Warez'd version with Starcrack AI. Doesn't really matter for me, I doubt I'll be playing any serious competitive matches anyway, I mostly like custom maps with crazy shit going on all over (Starcraft II DotA anyone? It's going to happen.)

In any case, I will most likely be buying it. Can't say no to a Blizzard game.

I hear it exactly the same game. Like, literally identical.
At least, that's what people are saying, and that's what gameplay videos seem to indicate.

I hope their level editor gets an overhaul. I'm looking forward to it.
Anyone ever play the Elements RPG for SC:1?

The game was perfect in it's original state imo, that's why they didn't change much gameplay-wise imo.

frankly, they could have modified the original version of the game with a bigger gameplay area, the ability to select more units, and a couple other small things whilst keeping it sprite-based, and i'd have been happy with just that! (rather than taking literally a million years to make a 3d version of the game..)

)

The only other thing i'd really like to see added is Xel'nega race to the game (all the new weaponry they added to protoss should be for the xel'nega race, and the protoss units should have been kept more traditional imo)