StarCraft Remastered


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    Re: Groo miss old games

    @groo said in Groo miss old games:

    No videogame will ever makes me as happy as just hearing the intro music of a new point and click Lucas arts Indiana Jones game made at it's time. Playing them again isn't the same thing, at the time they were new and everything about them was awesome.

    https://youtu.be/ET_98IcvoTI

    FINALLY❗


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    In other words, they're turning a 600 Mb game that requires about 64 Mb of RAM and an Intell Pentium II processor (at least 200 MHz IRC) Into a 40 Gb texturemap wasteland requiring 5 Gb of RAM, a Core i7 3.8 GHz multicore processor, and an Internet connection?


  • FoxDev

    @Tsaukpaetra That, is the modern way.


  • Java Dev

    @Tsaukpaetra I think I read somewhere that it's netcode-compatible with (an upcoming patch of) the original, so you can play the original instead if you prefer.


  • Java Dev

    @Tsaukpaetra Well, they are also making the original 600MB game a free download in the process, so a win for everyone who doesn't have it! And the remastered version will still be 2D from the looks of it, just updated to 4K 2D graphics instead of 480p 2D graphics. And, if I understood them correctly, multiplayer will work across both versions.



  • @Atazhaia said in StarCraft Remastered:

    Well, they are also making the original 600MB game a free download in the process

    I own it. But good luck proving that.
    This helps a lot.

    I like the original look anyway. When they upped the resolution they reinterpreted some things to be leaner, which takes away from that bulky feel of the Terrans. It also makes it harder to pick out individual units as quickly.


  • Java Dev

    Also, for some extra fun, the digital download version is sold out in the Blizzard store. When I saw it I did go :wtf: as it was before the announcement came. Then I understood the reason for making it unavailable for sale.

    0_1490863625136_sc-soldout.png


  • Java Dev

    @xaade said in StarCraft Remastered:

    I own it. But good luck proving that.

    I'm pretty sure it has a CD key, which you can attach to your battle.net account.



  • @PleegWat said in StarCraft Remastered:

    @xaade said in StarCraft Remastered:

    I own it. But good luck proving that.

    I'm pretty sure it has a CD key, which you can attach to your battle.net account.

    Last I had that....


  • Java Dev

    Maybe this time I can make an effort to fully beat StarCraft. Last time I tried I managed to get to the third mission from the end in Brood War, which is annoyingly close to fully beating the game. Sadly I lost focus at that point, and I didn't manage to make a return to it and it's been too long since then by now.


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Tsaukpaetra Don't forget removing any form of LAN or direct-connect network play so you're forced to run the game from Battle.net and have the client shove ads in your face.

    Also I can't wait to see how South Korea reacts to this.



  • @bugmenot The original version still has those, right? The one they're making free to download?

    And in making it free, are they giving out an update to bypass the key check or a master key?



  • @Dreikin said in StarCraft Remastered:

    FINALLY

    Also, this:

    Might finally get around to getting a little further in it than the morgue.


  • Java Dev

    @djls45 If you have the CD key added to battle.net, you can download the game from there in a different installer bundle than is on the original CDs. If I remember correctly, that installer already does not ask for a CD key.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    @xaade said in StarCraft Remastered:

    I like the original look anyway. When they upped the resolution they reinterpreted some things to be leaner, which takes away from that bulky feel of the Terrans. It also makes it harder to pick out individual units as quickly.

    Yeah, I wasn't as thrilled with that part. I'd've liked it to be a bit more faithful in the graphics too.

    @Atazhaia said in StarCraft Remastered:

    Maybe this time I can make an effort to fully beat StarCraft. Last time I tried I managed to get to the third mission from the end in Brood War, which is annoyingly close to fully beating the game. Sadly I lost focus at that point, and I didn't manage to make a return to it and it's been too long since then by now.

    I only made it a bit into the Protoss missions last time I played. I don't think I've even hit the brood war stuff yet.

    The first time I played was on N64. The next (and latest) was by the time my screen was so huge that even a pixel doubler mod left it teeny.

    @Maciejasjmj said in StarCraft Remastered:

    @Dreikin said in StarCraft Remastered:

    FINALLY

    Also, this:

    Might finally get around to getting a little further in it than the morgue.

    Never played it, but I've heard so much positive reminiscing about it in recent years that I'm mighty tempted by that.



  • My dad worked as a computer tech for a few years at a place that allowed the employees to take home any software they wanted. (But hardware was off-limits.) He had a burned CD for Starcraft that my siblings and I tried playing with. We played around with the map editor, which was pretty cool, but we couldn't ever figure out how to get the actual game running. We learned several years later that the game could be copied and installed for multiplayer only if there was no CD-key. We had no such key at the time.

    Once we got that remedied, we thought it was a pretty good game, but by then we were already hooked more on the Command & Conquer and C&C: Red Alert series and Mechwarrior 2 (also picked up the same way, as take-home software) and had started getting into making .ini mods for ourselves.

    I think the most memorable was when we changed Tanya's weapon so that it fired at a fairly long range; fired at the maximum possible rate; used projectiles that flew at a fairly slow speed, turned at the slowest rate, used the flying attack dog projectile art; and erupted with a nuclear blast on impact. It was pretty funny, but really hard to actually use. As soon as Tanya began attacking an opponent, there would be a solid line of mid-leap canines superman-ing towards their target. If it moved, they would slowly turn to follow it, sometimes curving around it before finally spiralling in for the detonation. Several would trigger their warheads before the game recognized that the target had died, at which point the rest of the incoming projectiles would scatter outward.

    That was all neat and weird and met the mod's silly goal. What made it almost unusable, however, was the nuclear blast warhead. Every time a nuclear explosion went off -- regardless of the source or where on the map it occurred, even if your viewport was on the other side of the map -- the screen would glow to solid white and back to normal color. For every individual nuke. When a dozen flying dog bombs impacted at the same time, it would do that fade-to-white-and-back a dozen times. (Obviously, anything within the area of the blast would be toast.)

    We couldn't ever figure out any similar modding for Starcraft, unless we did it with special triggers in the custom map editor.


  • Java Dev

    @djls45 said in StarCraft Remastered:

    We couldn't ever figure out any similar modding for Starcraft, unless we did it with special triggers in the custom map editor.

    If I remember correctly you can't mod units in the original starcraft apart from stats and costs.

    SC2 you can basically do whatever, since every last detail of the units and abilities is data-driven and can be changed in the editor. Also while SC1 only had triggers which are checked every 2 seconds, SC2 has an event-driven model which can respond immediately.


  • Impossible Mission - B

    There were some great third-party modding tools for Starcraft. They just weren't supported by Blizzard.


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    @masonwheeler said in StarCraft Remastered:

    third-party modding tools for Starcraft

    Yeah, I once got the installation to under 65 Mb for multiplayer-only mode, all the single-player campaigns, sounds, animations, and movies were stripped out. All so it could fit in a Zip disk (which, surprisingly enough, some computers at my HS actually had).


  • Grade A Premium Asshole

    @Dreikin If you're going to play Planescape make sure to get the GOG version. The "remaster" is from Beamdog Software and when they "remastered" the Baldur's Gate series the end result read like Tumblr fanfiction. (Because it effectively was Tumblr fanfiction.) You're also going to want to grab the fixpack and possibly the content restoration mod too.



  • @djls45

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8pAIY1f7j4

    The game lets you play doom 2000, C&C and C&C Red Alert.

    Red Alert 2 takes magic to get working on Windows 10 (even if you install it via origin)



  • @lucas1 That looks pretty neat, although they've modded the games a little, so the gameplay isn't the original experience.

    I do have original CDs for Dune:2000, C&C (DOS & Win95), RA, and newer, up to the First Decade collection. I do not have RA3 yet. For the ones that don't work on newer versions of Windows, I just use a VM if I want to play them. Plus, then I have the single-player campaigns, which is how I usually play these games.



  • @djls45 The biggest change is that the build works like RA2 which is fine by me tbh.



  • @djls45 said in StarCraft Remastered:

    the First Decade collection

    I had lots of problems with that - half the games refused to launch, complaining that the DVD wasn't in the drive (it was). EA support were completely unhelpful at the time, unsurprisingly.

    I recently picked up the C&C Ultimate Collection - everything from the original C&C through to RA3 Uprising and C&C4. Supposedly updated to work on Vista and 7. I haven't made my way very far into it yet but I'm hoping to at least be able to play some of the games I couldn't before.



  • @Scarlet_Manuka RA2 requires magic. There are guides online. But it took me about 2 hours to get RA2 working right.



  • @lucas1 Noted, thanks. It'll probably be a while before I get that far though :)



  • @Scarlet_Manuka said in StarCraft Remastered:

    the DVD wasn't in the drive (it was)

    The only times I've had that issue were whenever I had cause to change the drive letter. If the drive (or image mount, which has worked just fine for me) does not have the same letter as used to install the game, it won't work.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    @djls45 said in StarCraft Remastered:

    @Scarlet_Manuka said in StarCraft Remastered:

    the DVD wasn't in the drive (it was)

    The only times I've had that issue were whenever I had cause to change the drive letter. If the drive (or image mount, which has worked just fine for me) does not have the same letter as used to install the game, it won't work.

    "Crap, which drive did I put it in when I installed it? Was it the top one..?"


  • Java Dev

    @djls45 Because only pirates have 2 drives.



  • @Scarlet_Manuka said in StarCraft Remastered:

    EA support were completely unhelpful at the time, unsurprisingly

    "I bought one of your games and it doesn't work"
    "Sucks to be you lol"



  • @anonymous234 Yep, pretty much that.



  • @PleegWat said in StarCraft Remastered:

    @djls45 Because only pirates have 2 drives.

    ??? 😕
    I'm not sure where you think piracy came into the discussion. I mentioned that I have my own (legitimately purchased) original CDs and DVDs, if you're implying something in that direction. Nor did I intend to imply that @Scarlet_Manuka was a pirate. There are many reasons that drive letters can change. Adding more drives, switching out drives, moving drives to another system (which may already have its own drives), using an external disc drive and connecting it and other USB drives in a different order (especially after clearing out the connection cache), etc. all have the potential to make the drive letters turn out differently.



  • @djls45 I don't think that was the issue in my case, though. Details are hazy now, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have made any drive changes in between installing the collection and trying to run Tiberian Sun, which was the first one that I noticed the problem on. I have seen the drive letter issue on other games.

    Research I did at the time indicated that it might have been due to having had Daemon Tools Lite installed - ISTR people saying that the copy protection on the games looked for any evidence of that or similar programs having ever been installed on your machine, and if it found it it would refuse to run. I know uninstalling it didn't help.

    But I don't think that was what @PleegWat was implying. I read that comment as referring to the poor logic of the game (or copy protection) designers.


  • Winner of the 2016 Presidential Election

    @djls45 said in StarCraft Remastered:

    @PleegWat said in StarCraft Remastered:

    @djls45 Because only pirates have 2 drives.

    ??? 😕
    I'm not sure where you think piracy came into the discussion. I mentioned that I have my own (legitimately purchased) original CDs and DVDs, if you're implying something in that direction. Nor did I intend to imply that @Scarlet_Manuka was a pirate. There are many reasons that drive letters can change. Adding more drives, switching out drives, moving drives to another system (which may already have its own drives), using an external disc drive and connecting it and other USB drives in a different order (especially after clearing out the connection cache), etc. all have the potential to make the drive letters turn out differently.

    I'm pretty sure that was a sardonic comment along the lines of "if you've gotten nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about".



  • @Scarlet_Manuka said in StarCraft Remastered:

    But I don't think that was what @PleegWat was implying. I read that comment as referring to the poor logic of the game (or copy protection) designers.

    Ah. That makes more sense. It seemed like a non-sequitur with accusatory undertones, because I thought he was directing it at me.

    I guess people's discussions really don't all revolve around me. :P



  • @djls45 said in StarCraft Remastered:

    Plus, then I have the single-player campaigns, which is how I usually play these games.

    Red Alert 1 works on Windows 10, Red Alert 2 doesn't (without downloading a api compatibility layer and mucking about with the *.ini files)/

    If you have the original discs it will copy the assets and let you play the missions. The only thing that has changed is that the menu system on the left because the RA1 menu system was shit.


  • Java Dev

    @Scarlet_Manuka said in StarCraft Remastered:

    But I don't think that was what @PleegWat was implying. I read that comment as referring to the poor logic of the game (or copy protection) designers.

    Indeed. Copy protection in the CD-based era was pretty horrible at making incorrect assumptions, and I think there were even cases where copy protection broke after certain windows updates.

    For all the flak always-online DRM gets, it's one redeeming property is that it is almost completely insensitive to whatever you're doing locally (instead relying on the license server being up and reachable).



  • @PleegWat I used to download cracks for games just because I didn't want to have to find the CD.


  • Notification Spam Recipient

    Status: Had to stop myself before I got sucked in, having downloaded the "free" version.

    Definitely appears to have been recompiled, the exes didn't appear to be the same as the originals from my memory. It also explains the mysterious new firewall prompt (in addition to the normal Windows one) when starting the Multiplayer mode.


  • Java Dev

    @Tsaukpaetra They released a patch along with the free version to bring better compatibility with modern computers and add a few new features. I would guess that's why the executable changed and firewall prompts are coming. A small bonus :wtf: is that to patch an old install you need to run SC as an admin. But that should only be a one-time thing.

    Note: When patching StarCraft, please use the ‘Run as Admin’ option; it is required during your first client run to migrate saves and avoid issues from Windows system admin changes.


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