Who's Pirating Starcraft II?

It's a game that has 1/3 a campaign, and whose value is mostly in the multiplayer and Battle.net. Gamers who are mostly into the lore and the campaigns may very well just decide to pirate this title, and perhaps it's understandable in this case.

[killyourfm]

You've got to be fucking kidding me. 1/3 a campaign? The only reason the original StarCraft had all 3 campaigns on the disc is that they all FIT. The art assets, the production values are astounding. The length of the campaign is no shorter than COD: MW2, which people also drop 100's of hours into.

In addition, consider yourself having one less reader since you condone piracy.

[GWAVE]

Yup. This is dumb. I wonder if the guy has actually played through Starcraft 2. I have not, but based on what people say, the campaign is as varied and as long as all three of Starcraft 1's campaigns combined.

[Cairnius]

So...if you haven't played the game, you really have nothing to add to the discussion, is what you're saying. :)

[hay]

I downloaded it yesterday not expecting much. After playing several missions I was astonished how well designed and made this game is and bought CE today.
As a rookie game creator/designer I hereby declare Starcraft 2 is a work of genius designer and great writer.
You have to play it to understand it.

[Darkfocus]

it's not even close to all of SC's campaigns combined.

[JsonHenry]

This game was supposed to be a trilogy. And it had over 30 missions which is on par with every other RTS. Not sure how people are getting it is only 1/3 of a full game. Because from the START it was said to be the first in a 3 part trilogy.

[Cairnius]

I don't get people who say "Hey, we knew this is how it was going to be beforehand, why is anyone reacting to this?"

Because it's different when you actually have the game in front of you, and you can feel what you're missing? Announcing that you're going to do something that might let some people down doesn't mean that the people who feel let down have to not say so when it actually happens. Christ.

[Lich120]

Would anyone even be complaining if the first game didn't have all three playable campaigns?! Times have changed since the first. To make a game as polished as the terran campaign in SC2 takes a good amount of time, unlike the originals campaigns which would take like two weeks to do now (yes that was an exaggeration, but you get the point).

[OpenGL]

Starcraft 2's campaign is at least 16 hours long, so a little over 3x the Modern Warfare 2 campaign.

[f789790]

Who are you people who finish things so quickly?

[FarEastOrient]

Starcraft II is actually a discount in comparison to Call of Duty, since this game is going to be used in world tournaments and years after Call of Duty 5 come out.

[AuToFiRE]

think of it this way, if it didnt fit on one disc, why not include 3 discs in the package?, its a money grab, who is going to pay $180+tax for a game? i strongly believe in paying for games, but that is just way too much, like honestly, how many of you ACTUALLY have or can afford that to pay that for a single game?

[f789790]

I bet a lot of people will by a legit copy and pirate the other two.

[Zinc]

They have said the other 2 with be treated as expansions and will be priced accordingly.

[rumplstilts]

The other two are expansion packs numb nuts.

Probably 30 to 40 dollars each. 120 -140 for a massive and incredibly well crafted gaming experience that I will pour hundreds of hours into? Yes please.

[MMFGaming]

Another person who clearly hasn't played the game.

The Terran campaign has better production value than most $60 games. Never mind the insane multiplayer that comes with it too.

The expansions will not only add ANOTHER campaign to the game, but it'll expand on the multiplayer as well.

Arguing out of ignorance is pretty pointless.

[ThanatosDMC]

Last night there were only 22,000+ starcraft 2 players on battle.net 21,000 of it was in my region which is NA. I hope the game wasnt pirated big time. I thought it sold millions??? Where are they?

[Matthew94]

im pretty sure the game is region locked

[ThanatosDMC]

I wouldnt know. I just see it when you log into Starcraft 2 and you'll see the player count being advertised on the top right hand corner saying how many people are logged into Battle.net, people playing starcraft 2, and how many are from my region.

Can people even play SC2 without being on battle.net???

[Letros]

You can play offline, yes

[ThanatosDMC]

I know you can play offline after the authentication online but you wont get the achievements and unlockables. But i meant, could you actually pirate the game and be able to play it or did their protection got cracked all ready? Sorry for the confusion.

[Matthew94]

its been pirated but i thinks its single player offline

not that i would care about pirating it....

[duplissi]

.... wait its the same length as mw2!!? thats pathetic..... thats criminally short if true, and you are defending it! wtf?

[Rhapsody_]

Thats not even close to the truth, on normal it took me around 20 hours and i have fairly good experience with SC (but still a casual player- no hotkeys etc.) Listened to every line of dialogue, watched every cutscene etc.

[duplissi]

oh good, cause that had me worried... i would be soooo pissed if blizzard let activision taint sc2 like they way acti fucked up cod..

[killyourfm]

Approving this only because I can't wait to see how many people avoid your site after this.

[Dance]

this game deserves to be bought

[Microshock]

I wouldn't say it has 1/3 of a campaign. Just because there's planned expansions doesn't mean they gimped this one.

But yeah, a true SC2 player is going to HAVE to buy those expansions because just like Brood War for SC1, it'll have MP add-ons too.

Meaning that your copy of SC2 has considerably less value until you buy those. And judging on how much the WoW expansions cost, it'll be 40 bucks.

[Cairnius]

The Terran campaign isn't what was gimped, but the story. What about Kerrigan, and Zeratul? They deserve to have their own narratives now, just like Raynor defines the Terran campaign.

Starcraft is a story about all three races, and how they're interwoven together. We waited 12 years for the story to continue, and we only got a third of it.

[Rhapsody_]

Look at it like this, blizzard wanted to tell a proper story for each of the three races this time, do you really expect them to give us 3 full-length games for the price of one?

I cant imagine this terran campaign reduced to 1/3, for that reason i think it was a perfectly good decision to split the campaigns into seperate releases.

[gravemaker]

it plays just like the first one...no reason to buy it except for good gfx

[Cairnius]

This has been my experience so far, as well. They should have called it Starcraft 1.5, not Starcraft II. I expect a little innovation in my sequels. Maybe I will find it the deeper I get into the campaign, and the change of having something to really do in-between missions is nice, but what really matters is the gameplay, but it's virtually identical to the same game we got 12 years ago other than the graphics updates, and when the going gets rough, you're not looking at the graphics, you're ensconced in micro.

Any discussion of this game is going to be plagued with the fanboys, of course, and the video game press has every motivation to not be thinking critically about this game so as not to jeopardize their access to Blizzard...but giving this game 5/5 is ridiculous. It's far from a perfect game.

[iceman2929]

I disagree in that they should call it Starcraft 1.5.
What sort of innovation are you looking for? Why would you change perfection? The SC formula is amazing, so why not keep it more or less similar? It has a brand new story, which is amazing, and updated graphics too. What else can you ask for?

[GrilledCheeseBook]

SC1 - around 25-30 missions
SC2 - 26

[rumplstilts]

SC1 had some really bad missions. When you have to infiltrate the installations for example.

[Rhapsody_]

Actually it's 29 missions if you incude those ones you have to make a choice between (but can still go back and play from the archive) just sayin' ^_^

[soulzero]

Was going to pirate it, but you just miss out on so many things i cba.

[KillerPwned]

I am just building a new pc and as soon as its done i am going on steam or to a walmart etc... Then buying this game i cannot wait they deserve every penny for this game its a masterpiece.

For the dude that wrote this article...........Fuck you

[GrilledCheeseBook]

just buy it at the store
not on steam but on battle.net but even then it's a full $60 and you don't get the guest passes

[bikar]

i dont play sc but i will try it
so there is no demo
and i didnt play beta
i need to pirate it

if i like the game i will buy it

[rumplstilts]

You are awful.

[Obama]

Actually there are some guest passes when one buys the retail copy. Your friend may give you one.

[GrilledCheeseBook]

never saw a reason to get mad at people if they pirate to demo
as long as they buy the game if they like it, it's alright in my opinion
or he could look around for a guess pass

[shuuwai]

not spoil the game for people.

1. you could play other race than humans in sc2.
2. the story is epic after 5th mission!!
3. I've played game offline after log online.
4. you see some main chars from sc1. who i won't say.
5. "hint" someone isn't dead. -_-"" but who? haha
6. the classic are back!! -_-;; what.. i won't say
8. some of big players from novels are in the game.. who? i won't say.
9. 1/3 of the game? these are same nockers who have not play the game.. so stfu!
10. epic storyline it use all novels that was done by blizzard.

saying you're poor and u need to pirate the game on the forums?

1. poor people don't have pc!!
2. poor people don't have ISP!!

overall great game!

[Darkfiber]

Multiplayer is boring and identical to the same game they already made 12 years ago. I played the beta and hated it, why would I pay for it? Not my thing and makes no attempts to further the stale RTS genre. If you want to give Activision MORE money to play the same game again and again like you have been with your Call of Duties and Guitar Heroes, by all means, be my guest.

[MMFGaming]

Play the game on hard and some missions will take you around an hour to complete.

SPOILERS

The mission where you have to burn Zerg infested buildings took me 45 minutes. You have to build units, send them out during the day to burn down buildings and then retreat to defend your base at night. Takes a long time --it's challenging but fun.

So, yeah, dunno where you're getting 1/3 campaign. You clearly haven't played the game.

Oh, and yeah, I'm never reading your web site again. People who condone piracy for any reason are scum.

[IcemanHH21]

i second MMFGaming.
very long campaign and huge Multiplayer , besides they only made it for the 5 million Koreans who are gonna buy it loll

[The real killer]

Starcraft is more than a understanding for real RTS gamers, i like that game very much and willing to pay 50,- Euro's for it.

Tomorrow, i have it :) Starcraft is for real RTS gamers.

[Zinc]

I have read 1000's of books in my life. Many of them were parts of a set of books. Like a trilogy or some such thing. I never once in my life felt like I was buying something incomplete, simply because it was part of a larger story arch. That would be unrealistic and incorrect of me. Each of those 300 to 700 page books were a story within the larger context of a story.

How someone can say that a game that has a plot arch from beginning to middle to end, with more content than the original, is an incomplete game/product is beyond me. It is beyond me, not because I don't concede that you could literally say it's incomplete, simply because it's in parts. But, because you are stating something that is obvious, but also pointless.

Saying I'm not going to buy it because it's incomplete is simply being obstinate for obstinate sake. It's simply taking a stand, where no stand is really needed. Are you going to boycott books? Movies? Novellas? Comic books? Bedtime stories? Are you going to start saying that because your wife/husband didn't sprinkle some cheese on the spaghetti, that it's an incomplete meal and you won't eat it?

I've said this many times in my life and I know I'll say it many times more.

What the hell is wrong with some people?

I understand you want to see and experience all of the story now... I get it. I do too. But, I don't go around making claims about something that just don't make sense. You are placing an UNREALISTIC EXPECTATION on the gamemaker. Why them? Why just Blizzard and Starcraft 2? Why not all the writers of fiction in the universe? Or all the movie makers? Do you see how pointless that would be? So why just Blizzard, as if they did something truly horrific and wronged you and all the rest of the gamers out there?

This is common sense basic logic.

[MMFGaming]

You know that JK Rowling chick?

Totally milked the shit out of me, forcing me to buy SEVEN goddamn books just so I could read one story. Never mind that each book was like a billion pages long --it should've been ALL in ONE book for like $15, not this $100+ BS.

Confirmed: JK Rowling is the new Activision.

Ditto goes with those Star Wars movies. Jesus, Lucas, you're going to make me go watch THREE movies? Why didn't you just wait until they were all done and then release them all at once?

And don't even get me started on that Tolkien guy.

[GrilledCheeseBook]

she was inspired by C. S. Lewis and his Chronicles of Narnia to milk out everything

[Darkfocus]

I never read any book series unless it's finished. I just can't stand waiting for the next one after I finish the parts that are already released. Plus sometimes series will just end unfinished which sucks.

[Xfanboy]

Im buying!!!! down with pirates!!