Starcraft 2: Heart of the Swarm Catch-All: It is here!

The launch event is live on twitch.tv right now. Started in Korea. They're doing some pretty fun showmatch kind of stuff right now.

*Amazing game between Life and Flash.
Now they're going back to a point that both players think was pivotal for Life's victory and they're going to resume from there in the replay and regame. Cool.

Thin_J wrote:

.Now they're going back to a point that both players think was pivotal for Life's victory and they're going to resume from there in the replay and regame. Cool.

Wow. That sounds really useful. Good stuff.

I'm pretty excited to get back into spectating SC2 with HotS.

Flash, being who he is, of course made perfect adjustments to his unit composition and positioning and controlled the majority of the regame for a win.

The only downside about the launch event stream so far is some little story moment spoilers for people that are worried about that.

*Day9's interview with the voice actor for Arcturus Mengsk is hilarous.

Amazon has my CE on the way!

Thin_J wrote:

*Day9's interview with the voice actor for Arcturus Mengsk is hilarous.

I'm sad I missed that. Day9 cracks me up.

I really wish they would release an SP component by itself.

So I'm debating on getting back in but haven't played in a long time. How tough is the multiplayer scene nowadays?

HotS looks like it's going to be a lot more "noob" friendly. You should jump back in. Matchmaking is pretty fair except for the occasional smurf.

jdzappa wrote:

So I'm debating on getting back in but haven't played in a long time. How tough is the multiplayer scene nowadays?

Well, the way MMR works, you're going to win 50% of your ladder games, pretty much regardless of your skill level. There's a good TeamLiquid thread on this, but I can't find it at the moment...I'll post a link when I locate it.

ZaneRockfist wrote:

I really wish they would release an SP component by itself.

? Not sure what you mean by that? Doesn't buying the game get you the campaign?

He probably means releasing just the single player for less than $40.

Koz wrote:

He probably means releasing just the single player for less than $40.

Blizzard was selling WoL digitally last week for $20, Newegg countered with $18.

Campaign is so good. It's still cornball space opera, but that's exactly what I always want from these games.

Also, SO MANY OVERPOWERED THINGS.

So much fun.

Thin_J wrote:

Campaign is so good. It's still cornball space opera, but that's exactly what I always want from these games.

Also, SO MANY OVERPOWERED THINGS.

So much fun.

Yeah, too bad Zerg didn't get some of those campaign units for MP!

When you get the game make sure you join the Gamers With Jobs group. There is one on both NA and EU.

nossid wrote:

When you get the game make sure you join the Gamers With Jobs group. There is one on both NA and EU.

You can join the GWJ group without owning HotS. I think patch 2.05 for Wings of Liberty added most (if not all) of the revamped UI and social functions they developed as part of HotS.

Mission 2 spoiler:

Spoiler:

At the end, Nova says to Raynor that because he didn't help her with the "Tosh" problem, she has to take him down. The thing is, I sided with Nova. Does she say the same thing regardless of the choice you make in WoL? I guess siding with Tosh was the canon choice?

Xeknos wrote:

Mission 2 spoiler:

Spoiler:

At the end, Nova says to Raynor that because he didn't help her with the "Tosh" problem, she has to take him down. The thing is, I sided with Nova. Does she say the same thing regardless of the choice you make in WoL? I guess siding with Tosh was the canon choice?

The exact opposite happened to me, and I sided with Tosh. I've seen other people bring this up too, so I think Blizzard must have accidentally flagged the dialog options backwards.

psoplayer wrote:
Xeknos wrote:

Mission 2 spoiler:

Spoiler:

At the end, Nova says to Raynor that because he didn't help her with the "Tosh" problem, she has to take him down. The thing is, I sided with Nova. Does she say the same thing regardless of the choice you make in WoL? I guess siding with Tosh was the canon choice?

The exact opposite happened to me, and I sided with Tosh. I've seen other people bring this up too, so I think Blizzard must have accidentally flagged the dialog options backwards.

For what it's worth, it was correct for me.

Thin_J wrote:
psoplayer wrote:
Xeknos wrote:

Mission 2 spoiler:

Spoiler:

At the end, Nova says to Raynor that because he didn't help her with the "Tosh" problem, she has to take him down. The thing is, I sided with Nova. Does she say the same thing regardless of the choice you make in WoL? I guess siding with Tosh was the canon choice?

The exact opposite happened to me, and I sided with Tosh. I've seen other people bring this up too, so I think Blizzard must have accidentally flagged the dialog options backwards.

For what it's worth, it was correct for me.

I got the correct dialog
[spoiler]but, I sided with Tosh

Well, that was fun. Campaign done

Thin_J wrote:

Well, that was fun. Campaign done :D

How long is the campaign? Is about the same length as Wings of Liberty?

Thin_J wrote:

Well, that was fun. Campaign done :D

Worth getting for the campaign, or just watch it on youtube and grab it and the protoss expansion down the road when they're cheap?

I have two accounts, one CE and one vanilla so I just upgraded my CE account which I only ever used for MP. We'll see what this much spoilered dialog is all about if you didn't choose anything!

Uh, if you liked Wings of Liberty, this is more of that, but IMO was more fun because the Zerg gameplay is just more interesting the way they've done the evolutions and mutations and stuff.

As for how long, I played from the time it went live until the time I posted that, so about 12 hours, but that's with breaks for breakfast and lunch and a couple of times to get up walk around and stretch my legs a bit.

I think I read on PC Gamer that the HotS campaign is 20 missions. WotL was 29?

shoptroll wrote:

WotL was 29?

Only 25 needed to "finish" the campaign though, due to branching decisions.

I can understand that they reuse boss fights from their previous games, but this Belial copy is pretty lazy.

nossid wrote:

I can understand that they reuse boss fights from their previous games, but this Belial copy is pretty lazy.

Does it taught you throughout the entire map? If not, that's not a Belial clone.

I'm looking forward to digging into this tonight. I was happy to see that my copy with super (new)eggsaver shipping arrived today when it said it would be 4-7 days.