So everyone's hating on SC2 because they let map editing down and the campaign was worse than a future episode of two and a half men. I guess I made this thread because I fucking love SC2 and melee kicks ass. Blizzard did a phenomenal job, delivering on all fronts.

I'll start this off with why Protoss is my favourite race. There is something about that inevitable time that occurs during a game, in between the first worker scout and the second scout (Overlord, Factory-flyby or Scan etc). I have recently been finding that it is extremely easy to open up with a 2 or 3 gate and hold my ramp. Then go for a quick transition into a hard counter for whatever weakness I can find my opponent to have.

In most PvZ games I'm in, I'll fast expand if I can see he isn't going to go overly aggressive in the beginning. In the case of a 7-roach rush, a sentry and a couple stalkers can hold your back for quite some time. In one example match (replay to be uploaded later), he came with a slightly later roach push and used overlords to gain vision - sniping my pylons and gateways I had placed on the cliff edge. He was avoiding my ramp at all costs because my forcefields pretty much denied him access at that way. With a gateway down and supply blocked due to him knocking out my pylon - I was sitting on some gas and minerals. I saw he was extremely roach heavy so I went immediately into two stargates. Chronoboosted out 2 voidrays and made what few stalkers I could. Then I just charged at him with everything I had and luckily his mutalisks weren't hatching a minute earlier.

Another PvZ example, my opponent expanded without myself spotting it - he took early map control with a few lings and I was forced to hold my ramp with what few forces I had. I eventually had enough to gain control of my natural and placed my nexus as soon as I could along with a couple cannons. This was on Xel'Naga caverns. Game progressed, we were fighting for the Xel'Naga watch towers for quite a while, I was making the move into High Templars, picking up charge along the way - when I realised he had taken his 3rd... and it was saturated... So I thought how could I punish this? I realised he had no overseers, nor any spore crawlers (no detection). I sent a probe to place some proxy pylons and my Dark Shrine was nearly finishing. I made 7 Dark Templars and sent them to his natural and 3rd respectively. He soon realised his error and made a couple overseers - his roach ball was becoming too much for me to handle and he was forced to separate his force to deal with this DT harass. As soon as I saw this I went straight in for his main and my stalkers dominated his ramp while his roaches tried to rally around.

Long story short: SC2 is awesome. I lose more than I win but I'm getting better. I'll post more 'thoughts' instead of inane verbal replays later, along with the actual replays themselves.

Ah, the joys of sc2.
Wish I had more time to get better, I really love the melee. Sc2 made me love melee, so kudos to you for defending what deserves defending in more areas than it gets bashed.

Melee is very fun, and the campaign isn't HORRIBLE. It is, however, quite cheesey, unoriginal, and the missions are as repetitive as my piece-of-shit custom campaigns for SC1. I think the reason why most people dislike Starcraft 2 (maybe I'm inferring a bit too much here) is not because of the game itself, but the direction that Blizzard took in creating the game. They stopped listening to the players, and they decided to add extraneous features that added nothing to the game.

There is a god.
Dem0n that was maturely done. Not trying to bash you man, but you kinda surprised me. Keep doing this!
Though I hear what you are saying, I disagree in part. I hear what you are saying about listening to players. What "extraneous features" did they add? If something is pointless and add nothing, will it really take away? I think facebook makes networking on it better. It also encourages a more mature playing experience with the absence of channels (well, at least FORCED channels). On starcraft II there is virtually no talking in game or in game lobby. No trolling, no flaming, nothing. For better or for worse. It's about gaming. Though I miss the days of sc1 community. I'll never see it again most likely...

Holy crap that's a lot of grammar and structure errors.

This mostly sums up all my arguments...
chat channels, no lan, no cross region... yeah..

Can't bring myself to liking sc2 because 1) i'm not big on melee 2) they ruined custom map part of the game.

inb4argument? It feels like you're just expressing your gratitude rather than really making a point

How did they ruin the custom map part of the game? The latest patch actually addresses a lot of things people were complaining about and makes the system a helluva lot better. And ultimately I don't think it is at all too little too late, in this case.

I dont remember Starcraft 1 being the most absofuckinglutely amazing thing the first year it came out either for mapping. Theres plenty of time for things to get better.

It was only a matter of time before Unholy found this thread. Lol.

We have chat channels now.
Who needs LAN? It's 2011. Besides, lack of LAN isn't stopping these guys.
Cross Regional play has been addressed.

Sure, it's old. But they've delivered a hell of a lot since release considering we're only at 1.3 and the list of documented changes is admirable.

I stand by my conviction that SC2 Melee is probably the best online gaming you're going to get at this point in time - and will most likely hold that title for a long time to come. Don't hate on the editor if you can't learn to use it, it's powerful shit.

@Devlin

Srsly? Custom map system not ruined? It's not like it's catastrophic, but it's a farcry from sc1/wc3

@Riney

Only time will tell.

@Cardinal

Still.. based on the fact that they have had tons of previous experience with SC1, WC1, 2, 3.. you'd think they'd not make some of the mistakes.
And let's not forget, that they were under both time and money constraint, they opted for Facebook integration before Chat

Also, chat rooms in b.net 2 just isn't as good aesthetically or functionally as b.net 1. eeeh this one sorta depends on a person's opinion, but I can say that b.net 1's letters were much easier to see, and they had handy dandy /cmd's

Yeah, seriously. They've made great progress since the game's release, and will continue to do so. Just because the game launched with a bad custom map system doesn't mean it is the end of the world. As Cardinal pointed out, things you are complaining about are being fixed or are known in general. It isn't that big of a deal.

Plus, the map editor is incredible and I think they did an amazing job with it.

I think people who bitch about SCII being horrible are idiots. I like the melee, the editor's the most powerful ever (and makes a much smaller leap than SCI -> WCIII did), and bnet, while not ideal, is under construction and still workable. Gtfo with your unreal expectations.

Fuck yeah.

It's weird because WE are the consumers

WE as a group PAID MONEY... SIXTY DOLLARS to get the game

So it's weird that Some of us would be blindly accepting of the product they bought.
(it's probably due to cognitive dissonance...)
And that there's such a thing called Customer Services..
And also Complaints

But there is a grain of truth there.. it's kinda stupid to keep arguing/complaining about something..
but it's equally stupid to keep trying to defend about the same thing...

I don't see it as cognitive dissonance or blind acceptance as I actually really do like SC2, the campaign, and the editor. I've been really satisfied with my purchase. As with every Blizzard product, I know that they will constantly update the game and listen to customers. I have yet to dislike the game since I started playing the beta. I know you're complaining about their customer support, but their customer support is actually really great in my opinion. All of their recent changes to the custom map system is because of them listening to their customers.

I actually don't really get why you hate SC2 so much, considering most of the things you're complaining about are no longer legitimate complaints. At this point it just seems like you're pissed that the map editor is complex, and instead of learning it you choose to hate it and tell us all that we also hate the game because you don't believe that we can actually like it. I get that there was blind hatred against the game when it was cool to bandwagon the anti-custom maps cause, but now that's fixed and all those people have to scramble to find something new to bitch about because as it turns out, Blizzard was listening and did make changes.

What exactly were you expecting to get with your $60, anyway? Why not research it a bit more before buying it and realize ahead of time that you probably wouldn't have liked it?

He hasn't actually bought it, he bums an account of his friend.
And I agree with devlin for the most part, except I still think the editor could be a lot better. Then again, it's a step above WCIII's WorldEdit and StarEdit. But it's two steps below UDK/any other modern professional game engine editor.

Its because he cant make Temple Siege 2 because the editor is too hard.

Wow, that capitalized "WE" in "WE as a group PAID MONEY... SIXTY DOLLARS to get the game" sure is misleading then.

I said this about a month ago in one of your threads - that hating on SC2 is old news, and you should just accept it.

Plus, you don't have the right to complain

Back on topic, I fancy setting up a SEN melee tournament when we have cross regional game play. Maybe 1v1, best-of-five, points system knockouts? Then scale the number of rounds and the time-span to how many are interested?

@Editor

I used to hate the editor, but I've accepted that already.. It's not about the editor anymore
I'm still not happy about the custom map system tho, and how they decided against a lot of things that would make the game even better than it is now.. (Custom map speaking.. the Melee part is great)

@Devlin
I did do my research... that's why I didn't buy the game??
And "WE" as in "A group of Customers" that should be in the Interest of Blizzard.

Pfft.. It caused me to not like something I would've loved... so I do have the right to complain

W/e, your lost.
I thought we did this already somewhere.... or at least tried.
I support this, cause I like watching melee (but not playing it.. weird).
It usually doesn't work out b/c people here are more custom map orientated... plus there aren't a lot of people here w/ sc2 to begin with.
but if you really want to go ahead, I can get my friend who's account I'm leeching on, and his friends.. who are all melee'ers.

It was a guess ;o