StarCraft II
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| Developers | |
|---|---|
| Blizzard Entertainment | |
| Release dates | |
| Windows | July 27, 2010 |
| macOS (OS X) | July 27, 2010 |
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| StarCraft | |
|---|---|
| StarCraft | 1998 |
| StarCraft II | 2010 |
Key points
- This game, as well as its expansions, requires authentication through Battle.net, as well as an account on the service.
- In order to play offline the game requires authentication from Battle.net once every 30 days.
- Heart of the Swarm requires the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty base game[1]. Legacy of the Void likely will as well.
General information
Availability
- The StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm expansion requires the base game StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty.
- All versions require activation on Battle.net.
StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void
- StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void is an upcoming expansion to StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. A release date has yet to have been announced.
Starter Edition
StarCraft II: Starter Edition allows anyone to play the following content for free:
- The first four missions of the StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty single-player campaign, including Mar Sara 1-3 and the choice to embark on Tychus’s first mission or Dr. Hansen’s first mission.
- The first two Challenges: Tactical Command and Covert Ops.
- Access to the Terran race in Custom Games and Single-Player vs. AI.
- Access to the following custom maps (map selection may rotate over time):
- Xel’Naga Caverns
- Shattered Temple
- Discord IV
- High Orbit
Essential improvements
Patches
Patches for this game should be downloaded and installed automatically when the game is run after a patch has been released. Note that this requires an internet connection - you will not be able to play online without having the most recent patch, although one can always play offline if patching is impossible. If the automatic patching doesn't work, you can manually download the patches here. These contain all patches up to the latest patch number listed in one - so if you download the patch listed, you get all prior patches as well.
Third Party Tools
SC2 Gears
Sc2gears is a general StarCraft II utility for everyone who is interested in the game (either a player, a developer or just a game analyzer). Its main features are replay management and analysis for both individual replays and mass replays (multi-replay statistics). It provides easy but powerful and efficient replay management and basic statistics for starters, and advanced statistics and time development charts useful even for professional players. It is also a great asset for tournament and league organizers in quick analysis of tournament results.
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Game data
Configuration file(s) location
Save game data location
Default StarCraft II folder
- Note that there are also shortcuts in the StarCraft II folder that are named as account character names that you've already logged into from that computer, that link directly to that account's folder. This is handy for quick access to replays.
- Local files are stored under
%USERPROFILE%\My Documents\StarCraft II\Accounts\. This folder contains:
- Variables.txt - Stores several of your personal settings
- Hotkey folder - Contains a file for each set of custom hotkeys you may have created up
- Another folder that contains replays, saved games, screenshots and other locally saved data
- The game is typically installed under
C:\Program Files (x86)\StarCraft II\, where you can find:
- StarCraft II Editor
- StarCraft II Public Test - only used when a patch is in public testing
- Under the Support folder, the Repair.exe tool that will repair file corruption - try this before reinstalling, it may save time
- Other folders containing the game files, crash logs, and so on.
Video settings
Custom Eyefinity resolutions
Open %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\StarCraft II\Variables.txt. Change the "height" line to equal your vertical resolution. For example, height=1920. The width adjusts automatically, and does not seem to respond to changing the width variable. Does not appear to work with bezel-compensated resolutions.
Input settings
Audio settings
Network settings
LAN Play
If you have a copy of StarCraft II, you can play in a local area network by creating a non-official server. In order to do that, you will need to have Starfriend installed. Although Starfriend is not officially supported by Blizzard, it has not yet received any legal threats (and the author states to have been in touch with Blizzard about that).
Issues fixed
"Unable to download game data from Blizzard's servers"
Disable Windows' firewall.
(Note: Other firewalls may also block connection, including McAfee, Eset Nod 32 Antivirus & Smart Security and Norton Enterprise, disable or whitelist the whole installation folder for Starcraft to bypass)
Jumping/Jittery/Lost Mouse Cursor (OS X)
There are a ton of threads, that boil down to it being a problem with mouse acceleration screwing up when there is a high CPU load. The problem with turning mouse acceleration off is that StarCraft will turn it back on, even if you disable the option for OS mouse control override.
The solution is a program available here. This program turns off mouse acceleration in StarCraft II after the game boots.
Trouble Installing Game
If you receive an error similar to "The file <name of file> could not be written", follow this guide.
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Language Pack Issues
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Deletion of the variables.txt file and re-creation should also resolve any issues with Region Limited licenses that have recently upgraded to Region Unlimited licenses.
Non-Steam Game Overlay
- Some people have noted issues using StarCraft II with Steam, saying that upon leaving the Steam overlay, any commands issued would become waypointed instead of directly done and the game would act as if the Shift key was being held down.
This has been found to be as a result of the default Steam shortcut to enter the overlay - Shift + Tab, which makes StarCraft II assume the shift key is being held down. When the overlay is exited, the game does not note the lifting of the shift key, and assumes that the shift key is still being held, thus creating this issue. This can be fixed by changing the Steam shortcut to another key/key combination, such as Insert, Home or Insert+Home.
System requirements
- These System requirements are true of StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty as well as its two expansions. They are, however, subject to change[2].
Windows Minimum Recommended Operating system (OS) XP, Vista, 7 Vista, 7 Processor (CPU) Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2 Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 or AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ or better System memory (RAM) Hard disk drive (HDD) 20 GB Video card (GPU) NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT or ATI Radeon X800 XT or better
ATI Radeon 9800 PRO
128 MB of VRAMNVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (512 MB) or ATI Radeon HD 4850 or better macOS (OS X) Minimum Recommended Operating system (OS) 10.7.X (Latest Version) 10.8 or later Processor (CPU) Intel Core 2 Duo Intel Core i3 or better System memory (RAM) Hard disk drive (HDD) 20 GB Video card (GPU) NVIDIA GeForce 9400M or ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro or better ATI Radeon HD 4850 or NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M or better References