WoW – Andrew the Hopeless Techie

Tag Archive: WoW

Starcraft 2 – World of Warcraft – RealID

Starcraft 2

Well I recently got a chance to play this game in single player mode, I must say this game is truly amazing. While the Multi-Player looks very similar to the way the old SC did the single player game play is very very different.

The key elements are there, you build a base, gather resources, deploy forces. Where the game differs is in how the cut scenes look and the overall game play in between missions. You are usually in a room where you can navigate to different sections and do things like upgrade units, research new technology and so on.

The video below shows some of the new game play mechanics. That video is a bit dated and a few things have changed, for example the Thor is smaller and made at the factory and no longer built in the field as it was in this video

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For example if you find enough Protoss research points you can easily buy an upgrade that lets your Vespian Gas refinery automatically harvest without needing a SCV to do it, this leaves them for more important things like building supply depots and harvesting minerals. Another cool one on the Zerg research side is the ability to have your buildings and metal units (Thor, Vulture and so on) heal themselves SLOWLY over time.

There is a small spurt in the game where you can play as the Protoss for a short time but I am not going to say just where so it is not spoiled for you 🙂

World of Warcraft and RealID

Recently a few major patches back Blizzard introduced a feature called RealID which until recently surved no real purpose other then to prepare for Starcract 2 (it also supports it). Now you can add a user using their RealID and you can then talk to them from ethier game and also from Diablo3 when it is released.

I tested this feature out and it proves to be a very reliable feature, there are a few issues for example if someone sends you a message right before you trigger a cut scene in SC2 then it stays up on the screen the entire Cut Scene unless it is one of the few cut scenes that require separate loading. You can not chat during a cut scene so there is no way to get rid of it.

This of course can work in reverse with people you meet on SC2 being able to talk o them inside WoW, I am assuming this will have similar function in Diablo 3

Starcraft 2 Beta – Yes I got an official Invite!

The good!

As the title suggests I received a Official Beta Invitation for Starcraft 2 this morning, this blog post will touch on my thoughts of the game so far.

I am not sure if I am able to post screenshots due to the game not being released yet but I will do my best to sum up my experience with the game so far.

The not so good!

Well it is not apparent that my skills in Starcraft are rusty (were never that good to begin with), I can not seem to get the upper hand on opponents that I fight in the Beta. Since the Official game does not release till July 27th 2010 the single player functionality of the game is non-existent (or at least locked out), this means that your forced to ether battle the computer in a traditional Battle.net way (similar to the online play of SC1) or go head to head (or 2v2, 3v3 and so on) with other beta players. The issue here is I SUCK AT PVP REGARDLESS OF THE GAME! You might think me exaggerating but I assure you I am not, playing vs a real person requires honing in on your strategy skills which sadly I apparently lack.

Point When playing I won only once (and that was vs the PC) this was out of maybe 20 matches i played through out the day.

General Game play VS SC 1

The core way you play the game has not changed much, the graphics are nicer and smoother, but aside from that actual game dynamics have not changed (based on the Multiplayer side anyway).

Aside from the actual functionality of the game being similar they seem to have greatly reduced resource harvesting times, the new time is similar to the speed achieved in the first game when entering the cheat “operation cwal” almost instantly your units gather resources (there is a small delay to make it more challenging), however I expect this might be tweaked and possibly lengthened by the time the game launches.

There are some units that have changed a great deal in use however I never lasted long enough to test any of these lol.

Overall impression from the few hours i played it so far!

I think the game is a huge leap forward in terms of technology and what it can do, however as far as feel, it very  much feels like an updated version of the first game. In fairness however one can not really get a feel for the new features of this game until you are allowed to play the single player game. I feel for Multiplayer at least the game will be very similar and feel almost like a new SC1 remake.

I am convinced that the story aspect of the game will be far better then the first and the dynamic aspects involved in campaign mode will make this game stand out.

In its favor it does incorporate itself into the new overhauled Battle.net system which supports RealID friends. These are essentially friends that once added to your list can be chatted with from any of the new Blizzard games, World of Warcraft and Starcraft 2 are the first two to use it Diablo 3 from what I hear will utilize it as well. Blizzard is boasting the big benefit of this is that if two friends have linked their RealIDs on a friends list then Friend A could be playing World of Warcraft while Friend B could be playing Starcraft 2 and both could see when the other is online and chat with them across games.

A WoW user could use this feature to chat with friends regardless of the realm they are on or the faction they chose.

As I continue to use the Beta I will report back should I find anything cool about the new game. Keep in mind just 9 days from today you can buy the full game so it is rather odd that i was given a Beta invite this late in the program and this close to the final launch.

Feel free to post your comments below and if you also have a SC2 Beta (official no hacked beta versions please) key as well and wish to play together some time look me up and send your RealID* to andy [at] andyjamison [dot] com if you want to be friends on the game of course.

*RealID refers to the email address you used when you signed up for battle.net. There is also a method in Sc2 using your Character ID but this is rather buggy i hear

World of Warcraft – Cataclysm Information

G4 has 3 videos up on their site that explain more in depth the benefits of the upcoming expansion for World of Warcraft.

Some of the features they explained were more on the Archeology profession – turns out this is a secondary profession so it can be learned in addition to the main two Professions, however the way the video put it, it is mostly a way to get additional Lore information and learn more about each race in Azerroth. Still this is a cool thing to do when you have nothing better to do.

Of course there is going to be other huge changes with the expansion some of which sound very interesting, the Lead Content designer (last video on that page) mentions so much audio being included that they almost can not fit it on 2 DVDs. It makes me wonder if they might release a Blu-ray version of the game for those with the proper drives, at any rate sounds like Cataclysm will be 2 or more DVDs otherwise.

With regards to flight in Azeroth they seemed tight lipped as to just what would be required to be able to fly in the Classic Zones but the way it sounded is there will be no additional requirement you can just do it, provided you are the right level and have bough flight in the past expansions.

At any rate this is a short post but wanted to get the word out, if you are even slightly interested in the expansion I suggest checking out the videos they are all about 6-8 minutes long and there are 3 of them.

http://www.av-j.com/wowcata

The link above will take you to the G4 site that hosts the interviews.