Stop playing into the elitist generic egotistical PC fan stereotype you so often personify. You sound like a certain no avatar having member we all know. As far as your cost argument goes, give it up. That is the fair market price non-piratable games go for nowadays. Since Blizzard does have online validation, they don't have to slash the prices on their games to get PC fans to pay for them.

As a brand new high end gaming PC owner myself(see my thread) I have to say the only good exclusive AAA stuff coming down the pike for PC is from Blizzard, and luckily, Blizzard is imo one of the best develpers in the world even if they ONLY released WoW patches and expansions, because that is one hell of a game and almost certainly the biggest and most profitable game in the history of time.

How many people does that game employ? Farmers, GMs, devs, authors, artists, designers, developers, producers, support staff, web designers, managers, accountants, gaming teams, the list goes on and on.

It's funny, because nothing I said is elitist, just the plain, brutal truth of how things stand. You also proved my point in the last half, they can do whatever they want, so they milk their playerbase. As far as I can remember, Diablo2: LoD is the Best exapnsion I have ever bought, ever, so far and it only cost me $30. I remember thinking "Holy Shit $30 instead of $25" but I did buy it and it was just mind blowing how much they improved. So far, Cata doesn't seem to be nowehere near as amazing as LoD unless they pull some serious rrabbits out of their hats before Beta ends and it goes live. SC2 is ajust a pathetic excuse for a game, I would have been feeling ripped even if I had paid $50, the game was worth $40 through and through.

I saw your thread (really shitty cpu for the gpu you have btw) and I hope you realize all new games from Blizzard can run on at least 5 year old mediocre models. I remembe being able to play WC3 on a mediocre machine from '98. when it first came out. Also, WoW is a fairly decent game, however it is just 1 game, and honestly their patches ave been hit or miss. It feels like now they are just rolling out patches because theu feel like, so when they have everythign kind of balanced out, they purposefully unbalance it somehow so they can "fix it" later on. Another disgusting practice on Blizzard's side.

Edit: Blizzard has always had "easy to play ahrd to master" games, however SC2 is more or less "easy to play, easy to master" as well, again. I'm terrible in RTS and I can beat more than 75% of the people it seems, the only explanation is that they dumbed it down for all the noobs to play. It's the same as FPS getting slower so all the chobs could keep up with people.

Well, I can't comment on RTS games, and I haven't played Starcraft. Also, I might have been a little overblown with my elitist comment and I apoligize. However, I do think your comments were a little pointlessly harsh. Reminds me of a raid leader I once knew who would kick people because he thought they rolled the wrong race for a respective class.

As for my 965, lol, you are the first person I've ever heard call that a "shitty" part. With the possible exception of the (imo) sidegrade X6, I'd have to say it is AMD's best gaming processor, and while "bottlenecking" is highly relative, and different depending on the game, I think it's safe to say that the 965 is more than sufficient for 60 fps on any currently released game that I would be interested in. My mobo is the AM3 socket, so I will upgrade when AMD finally releases a better processor. I'm a little shocked that you are suggesting I go Intel. Talk about milking their customers. I could buy my 965, and in the future by an as of yet unreleased upgrade from AMD and still get off cheaper than I would if I went with some of the i7s. Intel hasn't decreased their price because they don't feel they have to. It is ironic that you flame blizzard for milking 10 extra bucks out of an Xpak and then in the same breath recommend Intel.

FYI, if the processor ever causes me to bottleneck a game I'm playing at below 60fps, then I'll upgrade it(if a better processor is out by then).

Also, I'm not sure, but I think you think I ended up going with the 480. I actually reduced that card to a 6870(see my newegg review, lol), from Sapphire. Great card. The crossfire scaling on that card is sick, so I'll probably Xfire a couple of those before it is all said and done(maybe when AMD goes next gen with their CPUs). I support AMD, so yeah, I'm very satisfied with my rig, and with that AM3 socket and 2x 16xPCIe slots that don't share bandwidth, it's forseeably futureproof from an upgrade perspective, so yeah. I thought it through, and sought advice. Trust me. I realize the 480 was too much card for my needs atm, and I'm glad I didn't add that spaceheater to my case. When an upgrade becomes necessary, it'll take me less than 5 minutes to drop a new CPU into that system.

I used to be the biggest Blizzard fan there was or close to it.  I loved Diablo 1/2, Starcraft, World of Warcraft, and Warcraft 2.  It seems lately that I am not interested in any of their new titles.  I kicked my WoW addiction and pawned it off to one of my friends by giving my account away.  I don't see myself buying SC2.  I played the beta and I really didn't care.  Having split the game into 3 different games also helps me not buying it.  I can handle buying one expansion but buying 3 different full priced games is way beyond me.  Sure online is king in SC but to have the story split into three parts is unnecessary.  They did it just fine in Starcraft and Brood Wars.  I just looked at the Diablo 3 new class trailer and it barely interests me at all (makes me not even want to buy the game).  Sure I loved Diablo 2 but the grinding at the high levels was tedious, pointless, and boring.   I can go on and on about how Blizzard doesn't feel the same to me but perhaps my taste have changed (or perhaps Blizzard has failed to come up with something original in 8 plus years).   Anyone else feel disconnected from Blizzard?

Saying SC2 is split into 3 game is like saying Halo or Uncharted were split into 3 games. They are each, in and of themselves, full games. But it will take 3 games to do all they accomplish. Noone can honestly say SCII feels like 1/3 of a game. There's plenty of SP, and as always, the amazing MP.

Edit: Blizzard has always had "easy to play ahrd to master" games, however SC2 is more or less "easy to play, easy to master" as well, again. I'm terrible in RTS and I can beat more than 75% of the people it seems, the only explanation is that they dumbed it down for all the noobs to play. It's the same as FPS getting slower so all the chobs could keep up with people.

Is this post a joke?

Do you honetsly believe you are a good Starcraft 2 player?
How many games did you play on ladder? What ramk are you in which league?

Do you honestly believe that the fact that SC2 is easier technically than BW makes it a worse competitive game? (In that case, let me introduce you to chess, a game you'll find pathetically easy).

I do agree with what you said about the campaign, lack of chat, LAN, and the shitty Bnet (although the matchmaking is superb), that's just greed.

No, the gameplay is simpler than BW's. I haven't bothered playing online since they changed Platinum into Diamond and shifted everythign else one league up but back then within 2 or so weeks I was playing at the top of the Gold Ladder, as in 1st on today's equivalency of Platinum, and I am absolutely terrible at micro. I also played Random btw, so I had to play zerg as well.

Okay, so let me explain something to you.

I was at the top of my division in platinum, and i'm nothing but an okay player.

You seem to assume that rankings really matter, but they don't, the difference between you/me, and someone who is actually a top player (as in, goung to tournemants etc) is so big, that if we play them, we will never win, maybe once out of 100 tries.

And no, other than the fact that it is technicallty easier, the gameplay is pretty much the same between the two games, maybe even more difficult in SC2 because of different macro options that you need to keep on using (Chrono Boost with Toss, MULE with Terran, Spawn Larva/Spread Creep with Zerg)