Need replacement for StarCraft 2. Any recommendations?

[thejadedmonkey]

Activision is doing a good job slowly spoiling titles they get their paws on. Guitar Hero 3 and on = the Suck. Starcraft 2 = no longer the premier real time strategy game. Diablo 3 will probably be another letdown.

I'm almost 100% sure that D3 will be a letdown. It's been something like 9 years since Diablo II LoD came out, and when you have Runic Games releasing a dungeon crawler that's probably 50% what Diablo III will be, for $20, you won't be able to think of DIII as anything but a money grab from Activision.

 

[iMatthew]

I still play Age of Empires 3 with the 2 expansions on my Mac and the latest patch allows you to play without the CD in the drive.

Cool units, top notch graphics, a bit of history, very fun

Age of Mythology gets kudos from me as well, but I wish the expansion was available for the Mac, so I play that in Boot camp.

 

[lannister80]

Another vote for Age of Mythology. Great fun.

 

[Kaiser Phoenix]

While this post may not answer the OPs question, I think that Starcraft 2 is an amazing game. Yeah, the Lan thing is a minor let down but I heard they were going to implement that anyway in later patches.

Business models change, just like a decade ago, we were all buying CDs, DVDs (I know we still are) but now Apple has changed the game field with streaming media, Amazon with the kindle etcetc

Now with Steam with online download, it seems only plausible that things change. I for one think the online aspect is cool with the achievements and the integration it has with your battlenet account as I also play WOW.

The game itself is nice with beautiful graphics and new unique units as well as old favourites. The single player campaign is well made with voice acting and cuts after every scenario, it is enjoyable.

It may not suit everyone but I would give a thumbs up to Starcraft 2.

 

[Meever]

Bnet has a lot of issues but the game itself is absolutely amazing.

The whole LAN thing we can blame on China and Russia. Thank you country of pirates. appreciate the shaft. It really friggen sucks but at this point DRM shafting is like a given on the PC platform.

As for single player.... What the hell is wrong with you people? It has better pacing, it branches, the narrative flows better, there are RPG elements and it has the same amount of missions as the first game! On top of that we're forgetting that Starcraft 1 has like 3 "tutorial" missions where you only have access to the basic units.

Blizzard has also stated that each single player game will be priced as an expansion And I honestly don't see why you people just refuse to listen to facts.

Would you have raged if Blizzard announced Brood War would be coming out in a few years a few months before Starcraft came out? Or would you have boycotted and demanded all 60 missions on 1 CD or no sale?

Also from what I understand Activison has no control over Blizzard. Don't bring that prick Kotics into this XD

 

[aznguyen316]

Did you buy SC2 thinking there was LAN available? I mean I know not everyone is on top of news etc but this has been known for a long time. If you bought it retail you could look at the back of the box and it says internet connection needed, and no mention of LAN play also.

A lot of newer games even with MP based games don't offer LAN support anymore. But if you're into RTS games, someone mentioned DoWII and I like that game a lot, although it's steamworks/GFWL so there's some level on online needed to play or get started.

Company of Heroes/Dawn of War 1?

 

[aki]

I was going to write a sober and reflective post on the relative merits of various RTS gaming experiences, but it's late so:

You are insane, SCII is teh awesome.

 

[Balthezor]

I bought StarCraft 2 and was utterly disappointed.

SC2 doesn't support LAN play and while two players can play against each other via Battle.net, the latency of the Internet connection is annoying and we were also disconnected from the Battle.net server after 20 minutes of playing with only the option to "surrender" open to us. I don't want to try again and hope that this time the connection remains stable enough to play for a while.

And since I am now a bit sick of Blizzard I don't want to play StarCraft 1 any more either.

Can anyone recommend an alternative, something StarCraft-like (real time tactics), where peasants collect minerals or gold, make it into buildings and units who kill each other? Must work on Intel Macs. Don't care what it costs. Prefer anything that can be bought online immediately. Any ideas?

Why didn't you research the game first? There's already hundreds of complaints out there with the no LAN thing. One Google search could have prevented you from that... But seriously, it was release day, why don't you try again? If that's not too hard.

 

[Balthezor]

I'm almost 100% sure that D3 will be a letdown. It's been something like 9 years since Diablo II LoD came out, and when you have Runic Games releasing a dungeon crawler that's probably 50% what Diablo III will be, for $20, you won't be able to think of DIII as anything but a money grab from Activision.

That's what you think, because you've never played the game. I'm 100% sure you'll buy the game and think its awesome.

 

[racketeer71]

The whole LAN thing we can blame on China and Russia. Thank you country of pirates. appreciate the shaft. It really friggen sucks but at this point DRM shafting is like a given on the PC platform.

Yeah, lets blame the communists, and ignore the fact that Razor 1911, PARADOX, RELOADED, TRSI and a lot of other major groups all originate in the West and have released thousands of cracked games.

Most people in Russia and China though, would probably never be able to afford a legal copy of a game, so the draconian DRM that might be targeted at these people who will never buy your game anyways, just happen to hit everybody. Also people who buys the game legit in the West.

So far, the stupid schemes we've seen with ie. Spore and Settlers 7 only punishes people for buying a legit copy. You're better of (from a user experience perspective) obtaining a pirated version. Or, from a moral perspective: Buy the game, and then download a pirated version with added benefits - then you're in my eyes morally in the right.

 

[aznguyen316]

Yeah, lets blame the communists, and ignore the fact that Razor 1911, PARADOX, RELOADED, TRSI and a lot of other major groups all originate in the West and have released thousands of cracked games.

Most people in Russia and China though, would probably never be able to afford a legal copy of a game, so the draconian DRM that might be targeted at these people who will never buy your game anyways, just happen to hit everybody. Also people who buys the game legit in the West.

So far, the stupid schemes we've seen with ie. Spore and Settlers 7 only punishes people for buying a legit copy. You're better of (from a user experience perspective) obtaining a pirated version. Or, from a moral perspective: Buy the game, and then download a pirated version with added benefits - then you're in my eyes morally in the right.

don't totally disagree with you, but when you can buy pirated copies as easily in those countries rather than download, it's a little different.

When my mom went to Vietnam she bought like 30 dvds all were bootlegged. They sucked though, no cases, just a copy and a cover. Ended up tossing them all.

 

[MyDesktopBroke]

That's what you think, because you've never played the game. I'm 100% sure you'll buy the game and think its awesome.

See, I hate, hate, hate that sentiment that people will just buy the game anyway, no matter the flaws.

I still don't own SC2. It has so many flaws, almost all of them pointless. I said during the beta if they didn't make battle.net "so good you won't want to play on anything else" 2.0 at least equal to 1.0 in features I wouldn't buy it.

Guess what? I didn't, even though thousands of fanboys said "lol u mad? **** cuz u going to buy it anywauhh lolol."

No LAN, restrictive map publishing system, pathetic custom game support, $60 for one account, Battle.net 2.0 sucks and had no features except Facebook (woohoo), no tournament support unless you pay Blizzard/Activision, region locked, etc.

Ironically, Diablo 3 probably will be much better. I was really disappointed when I first saw D3, due to the original art style, and thought that at least SC2 would be a worth while. Strangely, it looks like the exact opposite. All the negatives that are in SC2 will have a limited impact on D3.

No LAN doesn't effect D3 the same way because no one runs Diablo tournaments, no chat doesn't really effect it because most of the talking happens in game, unlike SC2 where if you take a break to talk you'll be behind, there are no custom maps in D3, so the publishing system and game hosting drawbacks won't effect it.

 

[ajbrehm]

But games aren't hosted on BNet... Games are hosted on your local machine. BNet is just matchmaking. At least last I checked.

It didn't seem to be that way because our game ended when the connection to the BN server was lost. That's what the message said.

If BN only does the matchmaking, why would a fault with the BN server during the game matter, unless the game is routed through it?

 

[ajbrehm]

Hmm, your memory must be somewhat rose-tinted

Battle.net was much worse in the 90s when Starcraft 1 was released, and also in the early 2000s when Warcraft 3 came out. In both cases it settled to a "useable" state fairly quickly, but glitches and drops were very common.

That doesn't concern me. I played StarCraft 1 on my local LAN which was better than BN then and BN now.

You keep comparing today's BN with the old BN, but that doesn't make sense to me. I used to play on a LAN, and this is what I comparing the new BN with.

What we're seeing here is just the same thing, except not quite as bad, and it seems to have settled down already (for me, at least).

OK sure, because if you are connecting from computer to computer, the only possible source of those problems is the hardware or your expertise.

Comparing apples with apples, the internet (battle.net) stability for multiplayer is much better now than it was in the 90s.

Again, that doesn't concern me. BN today is for me not competing with BN then but with LAN then.

You are telling me that I should be happy with using BN instead of a LAN because BN is now better than BN was ten years ago. However, LAN is still better than BN now and then.

The lack of LAN play is another discussion. It's disappointing, sure. However I'd wager that at most 1% of players actually connect via LAN in this day and age, at least where internet connectivity is available.

That is unlikely but possible. However, it doesn't change the fact that I would have to lower my expectations since Internet play today is simply not as good as LAN play was in the 90s.

Even the fastest DSL or cable connection is slower than even 90s Ethernet networks and latency is a real issue for me (regardless of whether other people notice the difference or not).

I sort of know where you're coming from, but you're comparing apples (online play) with oranges (LAN play).

Unfortunately for you, Blizzard took away all your oranges.

Actually, I am just comparing my experience. I don't care which technology Blizzard use to give me the experience.

If I bought a new car and found that it couldn't go faster than 10 mph, I wouldn't accept the excuse that it's a new technology which was even slower ten years ago.

Fact is that I had a better experience playing WarCraft 1 with a serial cable than I had with StarCraft 2 via BN. And that's what SC2 is competing with, for me. Unless BN gives me as good or better an experience than my LAN, I cannot praise it. Doing so would require me to lower my standards and I don't think technology should make us lower our standards.

I'd sit tight ... with the huge outcry about lack of LAN support on the forums it might be added in a later patch.

Unless too many people claim that they don't see a difference and that hence there isn't one. :-(

People are all too willing to get less for the benefit of being "right" in discussions.

IMHO the sheer volume of people complaining about this is indicitive of the fact that most people want it so that they can play a pirated copy and avoid the battle.net authentication system, but YMMV.

They can keep the BN authentication if they insist. But I want my LAN games to be hosted and run in my LAN without a need to be connected and dependent on BN during the game.

 

[ajbrehm]

Points:

In the OP's defense, for all the people that are saying they are playing fine on slow connections to Bnet, remember that you aren't playing someone in your house. The OP is, probably meaning that he has to share his already slow connection with the other person.

I'm not sure how slow 8 Mbit/s is considered these days. I haven't upgraded my DSL connection since 2004.

Also note that as I said before, speed wasn't the problem. Lag was.

And lag depends on distance, not speed. Unless Blizzard move their Battle.net servers to my neighbour's house, this problem won't go away, regardless of how fast my Internet connection is.

Personally, I'm not massively caught up with the LAN-less issue, simply because I dont live with my flatmates anymore, however, I can see why it would be a major point for other people, especially if you live with your mate's or have grown up with LAN parties such as counterstrike, C&C and others.

Exactly. I hate giving up things I have. NEW TECHNOLOGY is supposed to add to what we can do, not take away from it.

To the people complaining that it's "1/3" the game at $60, remember that the original SC had only 10 missions per race. Starcraft 2 comes packed with 30, along with much updated gameplay, graphics and extra content. Also, we have no idea at what rage they will price the expansions for Zerg and Protoss. Everyone is saying $180 dollars for the same game, but I would be surprised if it was. I reckon that if they publish the Zerg and Protoss campaigns as Expansion packs rather then stand alone games, they might be $30 each, maybe a bit less.

I don't care what the game costs. I'd happily pay several hundred euros for it if it means that I'd have something I can play reliably on my LAN for the next ten years.

StarCraft 1 was such a deal. It was (and is) an excellent game that had no downsides whatsoever.

But StarCraft 2 simply cannot compete with it. SC2 cannot even compete with the experience I had with WarCraft 1 and a serial cable. And it doesn't matter whether it can do things SC1 and WC1 couldn't do. Unless it can also do what the hold games could do, the new features are of no value to me.

 

[ajbrehm]

I still play Age of Empires 3 with the 2 expansions on my Mac and the latest patch allows you to play without the CD in the drive.

Cool units, top notch graphics, a bit of history, very fun

Age of Mythology gets kudos from me as well, but I wish the expansion was available for the Mac, so I play that in Boot camp.

Ta. I'll look into that.

 

[ajbrehm]

I'm almost 100% sure that D3 will be a letdown. It's been something like 9 years since Diablo II LoD came out, and when you have Runic Games releasing a dungeon crawler that's probably 50% what Diablo III will be, for $20, you won't be able to think of DIII as anything but a money grab from Activision.

That's pretty much what I am thinking now.

 

[ajbrehm]

See, I hate, hate, hate that sentiment that people will just buy the game anyway, no matter the flaws.

I still don't own SC2. It has so many flaws, almost all of them pointless. I said during the beta if they didn't make battle.net "so good you won't want to play on anything else" 2.0 at least equal to 1.0 in features I wouldn't buy it.

Exactly! You got it.

Guess what? I didn't, even though thousands of fanboys said "lol u mad? **** cuz u going to buy it anywauhh lolol."

No LAN, restrictive map publishing system, pathetic custom game support, $60 for one account, Battle.net 2.0 sucks and had no features except Facebook (woohoo), no tournament support unless you pay Blizzard/Activision, region locked, etc.

Exactly. Listening to all those fanbois, I am wondering what they think happened to the LAN world.

I want LAN support. And I think tournaments are cool. People should be able to organise their own tournaments for fun. That's what it's all about.

 

[redking31591]

I didn't buy SC2 for a couple reasons. Most of them are connected to how Bobby "take the fun out making games" Kotick and hacktivision seem to have twisted Blizzard's arm concerning distribution.

Basically Mr. Kotick wants to make sure every person has to pay $60 for 1/3 of the game, register on battle.net 2.0 which restricts and cripples the map making community (that would be too "fun" for Mr. Kotick), remove LAN (basically crippling competitive play, which now requires Blizzard authorization to hold tournaments over Battle.net 2.0, plus Blizzard gets a cut of any revenue generated) and all this is shoved down our, the honest fan's, throat to combat "piracy."

Of course, people have already gotten cracked, pirated versions of SC2 on battle.net, so it's all pointless. Just like it was for Bioshock 2. And Modern Warfare 2. And Crysis. And, oh, never mind. Once again, a company penalizes only the honest customers for absolutely no reason.

Hackers gon' hack, buyers gon' buy.

So, yeah. Playing the beta was more than enough for me until Bobby Kotick goes back to what ever hole he crawled out of. He's probably the final boss in Diablo 3. Blech, I'm really disappointed, considering SC2 was actually a quality production, and I really have to give props to Dustin Browder and the rest of his team.

Sigh, Activision has had no, I mean NO, input on Starcraft II, they are still reasonably separate companies. one of the leads on Starcraft II actually said in an interview that he had never even met an activision employee. Also might I point you to the MSRP of Diablo 2 and Warcraft III. Both were $60 nearly 10 years ago, but everyone seems to forget that. Blizzard games have always commanded a premium over normal games, just like Apple computers. You are paying for something you know will be quality.

 

[ajbrehm]

You are paying for something you know will be quality.

Or, for that matter, for something you thought would be quality.

 

[Mackilroy]

And for many people it is quality. I find the game exceptionally fun.

 

[akm3]

Supreme Commander! One of the best games, ever. SC2 (not THAT SC2, Supreme Commander 2) I haven't played yet so I can't comment.

SC1 (again, NOT Star Craft 1) is one of the greatest RTS of all time.

 

[Slux]

Fact is that I had a better experience playing WarCraft 1 with a serial cable than I had with StarCraft 2 via BN. And that's what SC2 is competing with, for me. Unless BN gives me as good or better an experience than my LAN, I cannot praise it.

I get what you are saying, don't worry. I just think you are setting yourself up for disappointment if you ever expect an internet based game to equal the responsiveness of LAN.

Nevertheless, have you actaully tried to play SC2 again since launch day? I can attest to the fact that I have not been dropped a single time since the first day of launch, and have experienced noticeable lag maybe only 1 in every 10 games or so.

Don't cut off your nose to spite your face Enjoy a great game online for now, and theres a pretty good chance you'll get your LAN later.

 

[ajbrehm]

I get what you are saying, don't worry. I just think you are setting yourself up for disappointment if you ever expect an internet based game to equal the responsiveness of LAN.

I didn't expect the game to be Internet-based. It still hasn't sunk in that the new wisdom is that a game I play alone or with a friend sitting in the same room is an "Internet-based game". Why would it be?

I never expected playing against someone in another city (or even other side of the street) to be as responsive as a LAN. But it honestly didn't occur to me that ANYONE on this planet would think that it is particularly smart to route a game between two people sitting in the same room via a remote server on the Internet.

And since I am not that interested in gaming, I never checked the news about SC2 to check whether they might announce that it won't have LAN support. Nor did I think that I have to read early reviews because I trusted the Blizzard name.

Nevertheless, have you actaully tried to play SC2 again since launch day? I can attest to the fact that I have not been dropped a single time since the first day of launch, and have experienced noticeable lag maybe only 1 in every 10 games or so.

I am a creature of habit. Even the possibility of a remote server having a say in a game I play against my flat mate is too much for me. Even if only 1% of games drop, that's too much for me. As I said, SC2 is competing with SC1 on LAN. It has to be better, otherwise I won't play it.

And I notice the lag immediately. I am not a particularly good player or a particularly good micro manager, but even I notice the lag.

Don't cut off your nose to spite your face Enjoy a great game online for now, and theres a pretty good chance you'll get your LAN later.

If Blizzard release a patch that allows for LAN play, I still have time to play it.

But until then I will continue to marvel at Blizzard's ability to spent years of work and research on a way to make network play slower with no benefit whatsoever.

 

[Sdashiki]

I get it.

You dont like SC2 simply because it, currently, has no LAN support.

$60 is too much for something like that, right?

Meh, people drop $60+ on an XBOX or PS3 game who dont even have an internet connection just for the, you know, game itself.



And youd rather argue with people, fanbois as you say, than get to what your OP was about: a similar game replacement