You bastard, Tridus Have to wait until I'm off work to get my box (overnight delivery, don't fail me now). And man, a lot of misinformation in this thread and it makes me sad. Tridus got some, but:

They've aready said they're looking into ways to allow cross-region play without buying additional copies.

This is blatantly untrue. There were tons of tournaments in the beta already. The two biggest were HDH Invitational and King of the Beta, which were independently sponsored (IRip and Razer) and awarded several thousand dollars each to the winner.

It's not Blizzard that will be picking maps and saying "Hey, we're going to charge for this". It's the map creator that will request that his map be sold, and Blizzard either approves it or not. Assuming of course it ever makes it in.

One thing that stops me from buying is the lack of a decent field of view / strategic zoom. Still playing on a 19" CRT and I'm not planning to buy a screen with 16:9 ratio for SC2.

Every other RTS title in history showed up with a strategic zoom (DoW series, C&C, Supreme Commander, ...)

I do understand that it might be somehow a gameplay descision for MP or e-sport competitons but if the do scale the graphics down for older systems why not for older computer monitors too?

What do I think?

meh.

Me personally, I like to enjoy the battles between enemies to much.

I like strategic level play, setting pieces in motion and specific battles and their simulations. So that way you can enjoy the fruits of your strategies and tactics. (Ala Total War series.)

The one that surprisingly worked out well for me was Dawn of War 2. I found I really enjoyed the RPG side of it even more than just the zerg rush of normal RTS's. Yet the RPG single player side was a TON of fun. (Because you got to follow your troopers into the battle, and enjoy the fireworks.)

That just means the RTS genre doesn't do it for me, as a zerg rush style.

But that's another reason why I'm so keen on Elemental: War of Magic.

I'd like to play it, but too much on the plate at the moment.  Will grab it in a couple of months or so.

I didn't spring for the overnight delivery on my CE, figuring I could wait a couple of days...

Yeah, that didn't work. I was lined up at Future Shop at 11pm, and was already 40th in line. I did get a hat, but no poster. Was up last night playing it. Got today off so I'm playing it again. The campaign mode is awesome.

Thanks for covering the rest. Too busy playing to go through it all. It's frustrating how much this stuff just refuses to die on this forum (along with the "Valve takes an extra cut for Steamworks" myth).

The bottom line on SC2 is that if you enjoyed Starcraft, the game is a must buy. Don't think, go to the store right now (or buy direct from Blizzard at 10am PST). If you don't like the Starcraft style of game... then why would you expect the sequel to be different?

Blizzard can craft a great storyline, but being exposed to games like Company of Heroes and Sins of a Solar Empire I have no desire to regress back to managing peons/workers for resource gathering. I prefer COH model where you capture and protect strategic resources and focus on combat and strategy.    

I was really tempted to take today off, but decided not to. Finally got my tracking number, though, and the box is out for delivery. Woohoo

Taking half a day off today - have my game in hand and leaving in an hour to play.  Ah, the joys of being a nerd.

Skip Starcraft, buy Total War or wait for Civ5 instead.

Funny thing is that when I play Sins, I always turn it up to 2x or sometimes even 4x speed. The early game in particular is SO SLOW. There's only a couple of ships and very few abilities to command, there's very little to fight, and not much is going on.  At normal speed it seems to take forever before I actually need to pay attention.

Civ 4 kind of has the same thing in the early game where the first 20 turns can be played in 45 seconds. Thank god for advanced start.

Being installed on my home PC as I work. Gotta love the kids. As I did with SC, the campaign is where it is at.

As an Online hobby, I was not impressed back then with the crowd, just to much hassle and from a guy who played Company of Hero's Online for 3 friggin years. Perhaps things have changed in 7 years????

Installing now!  Happy nerd times are here...

Same as the above.

Please provide us with a review after you releashed yourself from the new game addiction.

Ironically, I thought CoH and Sins did not move the genre forward at all - in fact, they took a few steps back IMO.

Relatively few RTS games nowadays really break barriers or introduce novel play styles that move the genre forward.

Wow, I was really burnt out on the RTS genre with the generic game mechanics of base building, resource gathering, scouting,  and zerging the enemy's base. Company of heroes really offered me something new and different in my opinion with the strategic resource and victory points.  Sins offered something new with the fusion of 4X elements wrap into a RTS gameplay. Only other great RTS experience I enjoy is the TBS/RTS Total war series. I really not excited about starcraft 2 because it seems like a rehash of old RTS mechanics.  I probably wait for Starcarft 2 game of the century release to enjoy the well crafted Blizzard storylines of the three titles and addons.

Same, with the possible exception of Empire Earth I don't have the nostalgia for 90s style RTS games. Their game mechanics are just too out of date compared to modern day incarnations. It would at least have to be as evolved as Rise of Nations for me to consider it I think. Thus, I'll never get this game.

I thought that the original Starcraft''s mechanics were boring and stale when it came out (compared to say Total Annihilation and Myth).  The buzz is that SC2 really hasnt gone much beyond what the original was in terms of mechanics.  So a definite pass for me.  I may take a second look if I hear the right buzz after its released though.

I really wish that Blizzard would do something new for a change instead of releasing really well polished, but derivative games.  There is nothing wrong with making games that are heavily inspired by previous games (see Elemental and MoM).  But whenever Blizzard does it, it always ices a genre since so many people try and copy them.  The MMORPG genre got so stale after WoW (which was very similar to earlier generation MMORPGS) and the RTS genre got really stale after SC was released (and SC was very similar to lots of other late 90s RTS games).

This was a must buy for me and my gaming pals until we heard about the "no Lan", after that, we all agreed we would not buy it.  We use to play SC1 via Lan for years, and we all ended up buying the game because of the Lan element.  In fact, knowing about how Elemental is so Lan friendly is why we decided to vote with our dollars and spend our money on Elemental instead.

I keep seeing people say "Things have changed, no Lan any more".  Ahh, hello?  Stardock is proving that wrong.  There is only "No Lan any more" if the sheeple out there show companies that they will give them money no matter how intrusive they get.

Theres no LAN anymore in AAA titles.

You are a smart man PurplePaladin. The lack of LAN is pure lunacy and greed on Blizz's part and I hope they take a good hit in sales for it from the old fans. That coupled with the move of trying to make the game as "online"  as possible and forcefully spread the campaign over 3 products ensures a "no buy" from me.

Maybe in like 3-5 years when the actual full campaign is out I will get the battle chest.

Yep. Like it or not, LAN is getting pretty antiquated and fewer and fewer games support it. There's a big general shift towards pure online play with social systems, achievements, etc.

As opposed to all their previous games that spread it out over two products?

SC2's campaign is so far ahead of anything Blizzard has put out before that people complaining about it at this point are just ridiculous.