What are you playing nowadays? Share yo' thoughts.

[Fenixgoon]

So I'm playing StarCraft 2, the first game was why I almost failed my first year of college. But when they actually released SC2 I think Blizzard had some China shenanigans or something else that really turned me off so I did not ever buy or play it. Fast forward to now, I looked and was shocked it was free, so downloaded it and started playing because I am interested in how the story plays out.

Legacy of the Void is the best of the SC2 trilogy IMO. The campaign feels like a proper StarCraft campaign. But in terms of story I don't think SC2 holds a candle to SC1.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Whoa wait a minute the entire StarCraft 2 trilogy is free? As in the campaigns and MP?

 

[Zeze]

Whoa wait a minute the entire StarCraft 2 trilogy is free? As in the campaigns and MP?

Yea. The game is very old now. Blizz wisely made them free for better late-stage exposure.

Becoming free is an old news as well.

SC2 campaigns are definitely worth playing, if not for the story.

 

[Stg-Flame]

So I'm playing StarCraft 2, the first game was why I almost failed my first year of college. But when they actually released SC2 I think Blizzard had some China shenanigans or something else that really turned me off so I did not ever buy or play it. Fast forward to now, I looked and was shocked it was free, so downloaded it and started playing because I am interested in how the story plays out.

I was the same way, although I did buy it on launch from Best Buy and played for only a few hours before I put it away. I can't recall what it was, but there was just something really off about the game when I first played it fresh out of the box. I ended up replaying through the trilogy a few years ago when we were all clearing our backlogs and couldn't put it down. No idea what changed between then and now, but the campaign was a lot of fun.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

All I remember is that Blizz completely reconned the UED out of the lore, which kinda pissed me off.

 

[Stg-Flame]

All I remember is that Blizz completely reconned the UED out of the lore, which kinda pissed me off.

I'd have to go back and replay SC/BW to catch back up on all the lore but I do remember when I replayed them a few years ago, there were a few questionable changes made to the lore within the campaign that I didn't particularly care for but the campaign was fun enough that I looked past it all.

 

[sdifox]

I have hundreds of unplayed PC games. But I mostly play Hay Day on my phone or COD Mobile on my tablet xd

 

[RPD]

All I remember is that Blizz completely reconned the UED out of the lore, which kinda pissed me off.

UED? Maybe I'm in a good spot in that I have forgotten the finer points of the plot line.

 

[RPD]

Whoa wait a minute the entire StarCraft 2 trilogy is free? As in the campaigns and MP?

I know right, this was me a few weeks ago

 

[GodisanAtheist]

UED? Maybe I'm in a good spot in that I have forgotten the finer points of the plot line.

-United Earth Directorate: basically the entire plot of Brood War revolves around Earth conquering the Terran colonies and enslaving the Hive Mind. Kerrigan tricks everyone into working for her, defeating the UED and killing the baby zerg hive mind so she takes control of the entire swarm and wipes everyone out.

It's also revealed that the Xel Naga are creating Protoss/Zerg hybrids as the cumination of their whole playing god thing, not sure that storyline goes anywhere since I've only ever played Wings of Liberty.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Wait wait wait, I knew this was too good to be true:

StarCraft II Free to Play - Blizzard Support

Blizzard says only the Terran "Wings of Liberty" campaign is free and Heart of the Swarm (Zerg campaign) and Legacy of the Void (Protoss Campaign) are both still pay to play.

Can anyone refute that?

 

[burninatortech4]

I've been playing lots of Stellaris and Hearts of Iron 3 lately (HoI 4 doesn't interest me). Something about 4X Paradox games... lots of fun to be had.

 

[Zeze]

Wait wait wait, I knew this was too good to be true:

StarCraft II Free to Play - Blizzard Support

Blizzard says only the Terran "Wings of Liberty" campaign is free and Heart of the Swarm (Zerg campaign) and Legacy of the Void (Protoss Campaign) are both still pay to play.

Can anyone refute that?

You are right. I was looking it up.

StarCraft II Going Free-To-Play, Explained

It’s really happening. The StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty campaign, ranked multiplayer ladder, and Co-Op Commanders will soon be available for everyone for free.

news.blizzard.com

Lmao, the news is already 5 years old.

Now keep in mind. Wings of Liberty isn't just an one-third Terran only preview. Wings of Liberty was the entire full product that was first released for SC2. Because few years before the release, Blizz wanted to milk their investment so they said, "we gon make 3 full titles instead of one Starcraft 2". I don't blame them as that's when Live service games and microtransactions were on the rise in the industry.

WoL has 30~ missions and 40 hours of gameplay.

The Wings of Liberty is the true SC2 experience as one would've had when SC2 was first released. You get to also control Zerg and Protoss a lot, you don't just play Terran the whole time. They mix it up well. You'll even play Zeratul's vision where you control a full Protoss base with carriers and motherships and the whole works against the almighty Xel'Naga.

It's a full SC2 product. Go enjoy it my friend.

Few years later they released another full 40 hour Zerg, then took another few years for the Protoss.

 

[Zeze]

UED? Maybe I'm in a good spot in that I have forgotten the finer points of the plot line.

UED was the whole plot of Starcraft 1's expansion Brood War.

UED came from earth to eliminate Zerg, but they get their asses kicked too. Even as a teenager I thought UED story made no sense in SC1, why?

Terrans are 30-50K prisoner ships crashed in a distant planet from earth. Then they had to rebuild everything and became the Terrans today with battlecruisers and siege tanks with no contact with earth. The EARTH on the other hand, didn't have to restart their civilization. Yet when they finally meet the Terrans, they show up with the same old battlecruisers and siege tanks? How is that possible?

I'm taking the 90s videogame lore too seriously.

 

[Zeze]

I'd have to go back and replay SC/BW to catch back up on all the lore but I do remember when I replayed them a few years ago, there were a few questionable changes made to the lore within the campaign that I didn't particularly care for but the campaign was fun enough that I looked past it all.

I recall lots of fans didn't like SC2 story because it was very dumbed down, hollywood-esque, and predictable.

I remember Arcturus Mengsk in SC1 was a cunning snake-like character. In SC2, they turned him into a bumbling 'fat' idiot.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

UED was the whole plot of Starcraft 1's expansion Brood War.

UED came from earth to eliminate Zerg, but they get their asses kicked too. Even as a teenager I thought UED story made no sense in SC1, why?

Terrans are 30-50K prisoner ships crashed in a distant planet from earth. Then they had to rebuild everything and became the Terrans today with battlecruisers and siege tanks with no contact with earth. The EARTH on the other hand, didn't have to restart their civilization. Yet when they finally meet the Terrans, they show up with the same old battlecruisers and siege tanks? How is that possible?

I'm taking the 90s videogame lore too seriously.

-The UED just showed up as a small expeditionary force that took over Mengsk/Terran Dominion's shipyards and factories.

Agreed it was always a little weird cause in theory the UED should have had tech that rivaled the Protoss.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

You are right. I was looking it up.

StarCraft II Going Free-To-Play, Explained

It’s really happening. The StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty campaign, ranked multiplayer ladder, and Co-Op Commanders will soon be available for everyone for free.

news.blizzard.com

Lmao, the news is already 5 years old.

Now keep in mind. Wings of Liberty isn't just an one-third Terran only preview. Wings of Liberty was the entire full product that was first released for SC2. Because few years before the release, Blizz wanted to milk their investment so they said, "we gon make 3 full titles instead of one Starcraft 2". I don't blame them as that's when Live service games and microtransactions were on the rise in the industry.

WoL has 30~ missions and 40 hours of gameplay.

The Wings of Liberty is the true SC2 experience as one would've had when SC2 was first released. You get to also control Zerg and Protoss a lot, you don't just play Terran the whole time. They mix it up well. You'll even play Zeratul's vision where you control a full Protoss base with carriers and motherships and the whole works against the almighty Xel'Naga.

It's a full SC2 product. Go enjoy it my friend.

Few years later they released another full 40 hour Zerg, then took another few years for the Protoss.

-Fortunately or unfortunately I already have the WOL campaign, which I bought and played back when it released.

Really hoping the SC2 Battlechest comes to Steam at some point, wouldn't mind playing through all three campaigns just for completeness' sake.

 

[RPD]

I meant I didn't know what UED was abbreviated for, this is that "ultimate" race that created the Protoss and Zerg and was trying to combine them? Or isn't that the Xel'naga? Like at the end of BW you play that mission where you uncover this stuff, right?

 

[Zeze]

I meant I didn't know what UED was abbreviated for, this is that "ultimate" race that created the Protoss and Zerg and was trying to combine them? Or isn't that the Xel'naga? Like at the end of BW you play that mission where you uncover this stuff, right?

Spoilers for 10 & 20 year old games?

• UED is just a reskinned terran enemy forces in Starcraft 1. One of them makes a return in a zombie/infested form in SC2 as a support character.
• Xel'Naga is created Zerg (purity of essence) and Protoss (purity of form) in hopes that they merge together naturally to create the perfect species.
• Amon (final boss of SC2 HotS) is a bad Xel'Naga wanted to accelerate the fusion artificially. This is that BW secret mission where you see Zerg/Protoss hybrid
• In SC2, you fight tons of these protoss/zerg hybrid. They're unique units and are very strong.
• These forced artificial hybrids are called 'false Xel'Naga'.
• You defeat the game by Kerrigan killing Amon and saving the world together.
• In SC2, you also meet Samir Duran (In BW secret level) again as Dr. Narud. It's a shape shifting agent of Amon.

(Protoss/Zerg hybrid Destroyer)

 

[RPD]

Spoilers for 10 & 20 year old games?

• UED is just a reskinned terran enemy forces in Starcraft 1. One of them makes a return in a zombie/infested form in SC2 as a support character.
• Xel'Naga is created Zerg (purity of essence) and Protoss (purity of form) in hopes that they merge together naturally to create the perfect species.
• Amon (final boss of SC2 HotS) is a bad Xel'Naga wanted to accelerate the fusion artificially. This is that BW secret mission where you see Zerg/Protoss hybrid
• In SC2, you fight tons of these protoss/zerg hybrid. They're unique units and are very strong.
• These forced artificial hybrids are called 'false Xel'Naga'.
• You defeat the game by Kerrigan killing Amon and saving the world together.
• In SC2, you also meet Samir Duran (In BW secret level) again as Dr. Narud. It's a shape shifting agent of Amon.

(Protoss/Zerg hybrid Destroyer)

Ah, yea I forgot the finer points of the original game and BW so didn't know if that was a label for the Xel'Naga. Yep been fighting those hybrids and they are beef cakes.

 

[RPD]

Ok so beat part one and not sure why I figured the entire game was free, but only part 1 of what looks to be 3 and some other content you need to buy. Wasn't looking to spend money on this and gotta say part 1 I was entirely underwhelmed with the campaign. Maps were short, easy and quick. I think like only one on the Char missions or right before that dealing with a protoss to get the last artifact part did I ever really get to build up any sort of a good size army.

 

[Shmee]

Yeah the campaigns for HotS, LotV and Nova Ops you have to pay for, but they go on sale pretty regularly, and aren't that much. I would recommend them, the Starcraft 2 story overall is pretty great. Also, if you want to revisit SC and Broodwar, you can try out the mod for SC2 called Mass Recall, which is a really cool project, basically SC:BW campaigns (including the bonus enslavers camaign) ported to the SC2 engine with some other enhancements.

 

[Stg-Flame]

you can try out the mod for SC2 called Mass Recall, which is a really cool project, basically SC:BW campaigns (including the bonus enslavers camaign) ported to the SC2 engine with some other enhancements.

I did not know about this and now I want to go back and revisit SC2 just for this mod.

I think my only complaint about SC2 (without going back and reading what I wrote in the backlog topic a year or two ago) was the complete lack of the Big Game Hunter's skirmish map. Sure there were 4,000 knockoff maps made by players but damn near every single one of them had one of those stupid "fast build" or "infinite resource" mods to them. I just wanted the normal BGH map to play some skirmishes on after the campaign.

 

[Sam25]

Started with Syberia 3 after completing Syberia II over the weekend. The first thing that set me back was the entire change of the controls in this game!! They wanted to shift from the point & click mechanism for movement of Kate Walker into a more fluid movement with the use of WASD or arrow keys on KB. Problem is the entire movement with the KB controls feels bad and accompanied by terrible camera angles when moving add to the misery. Sometimes it's just odd to get into areas in the world because you accidentally bump your character into objects while moving. Just feels awkward and to think this isn't really a very old game.

Story seems decent as of now so working through the above issues and since I have picked up the series will like to complete it all the way now.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Well, Borderlands 3 was fun but it didn't grip me like Borderlands or Borderlands 2 did. Finished three characters to max level and saw what the game had to offer. I could definitely see some new DLCs bringing me back like they did with BL2, but they would have to be pretty good. At first, I didn't even like the idea of being able to find legendary gear so easily, but it didn't take me long to recall how frustrating it was in the past games trying to get a specific piece of gear to fill our your build only to spend 100 hours farming the same boss and never get it so that actually turned out to be a good thing in the end. Didn't really care for how they handled the story but I guess GoT was pretty popular at the time so they had to play to the fan service and just start killing characters off for funsies.

Started Mount and Blade 2 Bannerlord and it's a direct upgrade from Warband. Tons of QoL changes that I had been wanting in the first game and it seems like the modding community is a bit more active for Bannerlord and the big mod makers from Warband have moved over as well.

Escape From Tarkov just had their bi-annual wipe so everyone is back at level 1 with a fresh account, but all my friends have stopped playing for one reason or another and I don't really care to play solo (despite playing for seven years now) so unless I can find some new people to play with, I might drop Tarkov for a while.