Re:StarCraft is now free, nearly 20 years after its release
by delegate on Wednesday April 19, 2017 @06:50AM
(#14146821)
This game is and always will be an integral part of me.
The number of hours I've spent fighting the Zerg, the screams and shouts of my friends from the other room and the subsequent conversations after the game ended...
"If I'd brought some lurkers over there... " or "There was no way your hydras could break through my siege tanks".
I still play it today from time to time - against the brilliant AI - which is still very very good and can kick your ass. Unless you have Battlecruisers. Nothing gives you as much confidence as 24 Level 3 Battlecruisers going out for a walk on the map :).
Somehow this game reminds me of those years - when I was younger and free.. Friends, girlfriends, LAN parties... Starcraft was part of our subculture back then.
Starcraft is a masterpiece and will remain so for many years to come.
Re:StarCraft is now free, nearly 20 years after its release
by hd4 on Wednesday April 19, 2017 @06:52AM
(#14146836)
It would have been nice if they had done a 'id software' and released the source, and thereby possibly encourage more people to take an interest in game development.
Re:StarCraft is now free, nearly 20 years after its release
by rplnt on Wednesday April 19, 2017 @07:17AM
(#14146932)
It would be nice if everyone did this, with any independent software that is no longer sold/supported. Independent as in major parts of it are not used in newer products.
Re:StarCraft is now free, nearly 20 years after its release
by candiodari on Wednesday April 19, 2017 @08:19AM
(#14147173)
I'm not so sure. Most changes people seem to make to their starcraft is enabling cheating. "Maphacks" (having the ability to see what the enemy does, regardless of normal game rules), and macros (having lots of actions performed in one go, because a significant part of the game is controlling lots of units correctly).
All of those would become completely uncontrollable if open sourced.
Re:StarCraft is now free, nearly 20 years after its release
by whatok on Wednesday April 19, 2017 @07:22AM
(#14146951)
I remember originally attempting to pirate Starcraft from an FTP I had access to from some IRC channel I used to frequent. Even with all the music stripped from the game, my 28.8kbps modem was unable to download it overnight and for whatever reason that FTP did not allow resumption of transfers. I had to get my friend with a 56kbps modem to download it and then transfer it zipped to a zip disk. My friends who were in college at the time had access to the computer lab so we would pass the zip disk around to install it one at a time and at the end of the night we would uninstall it to cover our tracks. Good times.
Re:StarCraft is now free, nearly 20 years after its release
by bsharitt on Wednesday April 19, 2017 @07:04AM
(#14146891)
I think it will be and that's one of the reasons behind the patch. If I'm not mistaken, I think the remastered version is mostly new art work on top of this patch.
Re:StarCraft is now free, nearly 20 years after its release
by soneil on Wednesday April 19, 2017 @07:34AM
(#14146993)
What's changed here (for osx atleast) is that there's an Intel build. There was starcraft for MacOS (or 'classic'), and then a carbonized starcraft for OSX-ppc. But ppc support ended in 10.6, and this is the first time there's been a mac-intel build.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14144193
The number of hours I've spent fighting the Zerg, the screams and shouts of my friends from the other room and the subsequent conversations after the game ended...
"If I'd brought some lurkers over there... " or "There was no way your hydras could break through my siege tanks".
I still play it today from time to time - against the brilliant AI - which is still very very good and can kick your ass. Unless you have Battlecruisers. Nothing gives you as much confidence as 24 Level 3 Battlecruisers going out for a walk on the map :).
Somehow this game reminds me of those years - when I was younger and free.. Friends, girlfriends, LAN parties... Starcraft was part of our subculture back then.
Starcraft is a masterpiece and will remain so for many years to come.
All of those would become completely uncontrollable if open sourced.