Starcraft 2 - Free to play ?!

[PowerGod]

Hi, every year I go to the Blizzard site just to find out if I'm finally willing to buy SC2, but then I see that the required activation/registering is still there, and also there's a mess of DLCs I can't even understand what are actually adding, and then I do nothing...

But now I see that it seems playable for free ?!

But I can't understand nothing else... the site is huge and require ages to load every page... and it always was a mess anyway (I still can't understant if all those SC2 - DLCs have some values for single players)

I just want to play the single player campaigns, I don't mind about multiplayer at all.

Did anyone tried to play that ? Is it playable the entire story of all three games ?

Because if it's free, I can close an eye about that DRM...

EDIT: so seems like the only free campaign is the first one...

I can't find anymore the campaign DLC Nova - Covert ops in the store... how one is supposed to buy it ??

 

[FaeMinx]

Well I can't tell you, as I compulsively bought all 3 boxed 'games'...

I know back then you could play WoL on its own, and LotV on its own, but HotS required WoL to play.

I've played through WoL twice, HotS 1 and a half times, and LotV once, but I've yet to complete the final epilogue mission.

I had a fantastic time with WoL and HotS, and would be hard pressed to say which is better... Though I have a soft spot for the Swarm, so I'm biased that way.

LotV is of the same quality, perhaps bumped up a notch... But by the time I played through that, (on my Surface Pro 2 btw), I was kinda over it... By then the story had become rather juvenile and generic to me... it's a good game though, don't get me wrong.

I have yet to play a single multiplayer game.
I'm all about the single player experience.

If you were to play them one after the other, that's a hell of a lot of game to get through.

If I put my consumerist hat on, I would say it's probably SC2 multiplayer that is free to play?

The only dlc I am aware of are the Nova single player missions, which I haven't purchased.

I would imagine that on installing free to play SC2, you would get the same game and interface and blizzard experience I've had, yet all the single player campaigns would be 'greyed out' and available for separate individual purchase.

My biggest complaint with Blizzard games are frequent huge updates that you have to download if you want to keep on playing, so if data is no issue, it's no problem.

If you pay per Gigabyte, the cost of simply keeping the game up to date and playable quickly becomes unsustainable... Be warned. That's also why I kinda stopped playing Blizzard games... It's wtf rediculous!


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[PowerGod]

Thanks for the explanation.

In the mean time I found out that the first single player campaign is free.

And also that the Nova campaign seems disappeared from the store ?!
I really hate their site, they sell things without explaining what is the content... I just see a lot of "skin, colors, stickers, etc..." ...
there is this package called "War Chest" that has a description that "seems" to contain a campaign:

"Veiled from the Light
Years after the events of Legacy of the Void and Nova Covert Ops, it seemed peace had come to the Koprulu sector at last . . . but even when leaders understand each other, their warriors on the ground do not. Hidden in the shadows, their battles rage on."

but then I look further and it only contains some kind of collectibles...

Seems to me that the only way to obtain the Nova missions now is piracy ?!

 

[FaeMinx]

WoL is free to play?

Great! Go get it!
It's a self contained game, so you don't *have to* play any further... But you may just get bitten by the SC2 bug and purchase HotS and LotV after playing WoL... Blizzard are probably counting on that.

That's surprising to hear about the Nova missions... I can only imagine they were removed in order to repackage them in a more lucrative distribution... Probably tucked into some of those dlc you mentioned.

Don't worry about it. WoL is all you need.

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

 

[sebt3]

In the mean time I found out that the first single player campaign is free.

You can play multiplayer and custom scenarios also for free (in any race you want. mass carriers on bgh, here I come !).
The only usefull paid stuff imho is the other campains. But if you wanna play sc2 on the cheap, there's more than enough free.

 

[PowerGod]

The only usefull paid stuff imho is the other campains. But if you wanna play sc2 on the cheap, there's more than enough free.

I'm a sucker for the story, so I'll just NEED everything I can get, that's why I complain about the disappearance of the Nova campaign, even if it's short... also I already played the first campaing in the past (by other means... but then I felt guilty...), and I wasn't so happy for the gameplay... too many timed missions... too many missions that had to be finished in just one possible way... but the story was more deep than in the first saga, and I liked that.

 

[Caine]

The DRM on WoL cured me from Starcraft, Blizzard and all DRM'ed content. I just can't be bothered anymore. There is so much DRM free content that I cannot finish it all anyway.

 

[Klumpen]

Does it run via WINE 3.0 or has it some obligatory client that interferes?

 

[sebt3]

it's still painfull tohave it running. Use playonlinux

 

[Caine]

I played it on initial release using Wine, whichever version was out back then. I did not encounter any significant issues or problems to get it running.

 

[PowerGod]

I still don't know if the digital store version differs from the boxed version... everywere is written that you'll need their "desktop-client" to play (that I suppose it's the same for all their games)

 

[sebt3]

I'm running the webstore version under wine. The issue is not starcraft itself but the battle.net client that is requiered to download the game and keep it up-to-date. Have a look at the battle.net page on the wine app wiki

 

[PowerGod]

I'm running the webstore version

I suppose that you can also buy things directly from that client, right ?
Is there also in the list the Nova campaign covert ops ? (Just wondering if they hidden that only on the site)

 

[PowerGod]

I installed the battle.net client, just to have a look... I doesn't seem so bad, it's full of options that can be disabled, and it can be automatically shut down when launching a game.

But the store there is just their site... so nothing about the Nova DLC... I'll wait a bit longer before starting to download and/or buy SC2

An interesting fact is that the client has Starcraft in the list of "possible linked games", but it doesn't recognize my old Starcraft installed maybe it's only for the remastered version

EDIT:

While I was at it, I installed the 1.8 patch of Starcraft, and it linked the game to the client, but the funny thing is that it is downloading 6 GB to update the game !! LOL
Later I found out that both SC and SC-R are contained in the same package, and the second one will be unlocked only if buyed... so I'm downloading it without reason.

 

[PowerGod]

So, I installed also the free SC2 thing, and all became clear... the store INSIDE SC2 is pretty esplicative and full of information.
For example, not only every chapter of the Nova campaign is listed and can be bought separately, but it's also clear that it is contained in the "Campaign Collection" too, while on the main site only the 3 normal games are listed in it.

I must admit that all the additional contents they put inside this client is impressive... I didn't know there was an RPG style advancements with online play... and damn, I was really missing the Blizzard cinematics !!

Also when I installed the SC 1.8, i pointed it to my pre-existent SC folder, and it kept all my previous saves and profile... and finally it starts with the right colors for once !!

The client seems to be downloading all the other 2 games even if I still didn't bought them, but was smart enough to tell me that after the first 10 GB I was already able to play the first game.

I suppose I'm sold... there's really little by now that can prevent me to get everything. (Maybe only SC-R will be spared...)