Saturday, August 20, 2011
StarCraft II - Starter Edition
Since I'm apparently so fond of demos and a sucker for StarCraft, it seems I'm going to try and take the plunge with the new 'Starter Edition'. I know some of you out there own the full version and I think some multi-player options are available, but they're probably limited. If it works out maybe we can get a match or two going.
I've read about the complaints and can agree with a number of them, but am not going to get into any rants at this time. Though it is hard to beat free and as much as I can easily hold off on a $59 full game, I am pretty interested to give it a go.
13% of 6.99GB and about 7 hours to go. Niiiice..
(here's to hoping the DSL connection I'm on isn't capped at something ridiculous like 2GB)
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Hey! If you decide that multiplayer is for you, and you want a friend (who's not that great) to play with, feel free to add me!
ReplyDeleteMy SC2 username is on the front page of The 8-Bit Variety Show in the right hand column!
Good luck with your StarCraft 2 adventures, and I'm praying for your DSL... Also, let us know how the starter edition is!
-BitNick
BitNick, that's awesome, I'll try to add you soon. Got through the download today, just installed and now it seems to need another 19 patches of varying sizes. I have a feeling I won't be running until later tomorrow...
ReplyDeleteSo far it seems pretty cool with the graphic recap of the first game during installation.
Finally got through the patches, signed in, and poked around some.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't add your character name directly as it also wanted a code as well, so I tried the email option to your 8bit account.
Better get some sleep and maybe try some SP tomorrow.
"13% of 6.99GB and about 7 hours to go. Niiiice.."
ReplyDeleteWhich is why I don't see digital taking over retail, though "cloud" services like OnLive may start to become more popular...but I still think retail will be around, especially with ISPs starting to put "limits" on the amount of monthly bandwidth that can be used.
@Coffee:
ReplyDeleteYeah, 7GB plus another ~1gb in patches was a bit rough. Digital does shine in a number of ways, but you're right with the situations with ISP's throttling and limiting really lessens the attraction.
I am disappointed in Blizzard with the always-on requirement (albeit the full version I think has some limited offline modes) and needing 19 patches out of the gate on a fresh game I just downloaded. I would certainly consider retail for a game like this not only for any in-box materials, but to just save some time during the next install. Games like 'The Witcher' (or maybe witcher 2) is also another example of online gone wrong with Steam being a requirement and numerous huge updates. Hopefully steam's new de-duplication patch feature will help in this regard.
I think back to the awesome offline and LAN features of the original SC and it's a shame they aren't allowing that kind of freedom.
I've played like, 1 online match is all, but could be talked into more later sometime. I use Chalgyr or Chalgyr@yahoo.com
ReplyDeleteAnd yeah, with the full version you can be offline I believe when playing the single player mode, which is where I spent most of my time.
@coffee - I know we have a lot of people who are really big into the download vs retail. I still lean heavily toward retail most of the time, between the fact you can't resell download, there's the long acquisition times, how much drive space you use if you install it to a hard drive instead of playing it off of a disc...
I've been too tired to do any more missions or try to coordinate an online match, but perhaps at some point. (heck, too tired to reply :D )
ReplyDeleteOne thing I wish they had was a very light-weight battle.net client (like Steam, even if you don't think it's light) so you could check out who is online and chat without firing up the entire game.
As for retail and resale, that's even getting to be a sticky issue with some games being tied directly to steam or requiring the purchase of a new 'online key' to unlock those features.
The good news is that DSL line I was on had a 150GB cap over a two month period, so we're ok. :) Naturally I found that out after 10-12GB of SCII plus a bunch of windows updates and driver downloads.