My graphics card isn't good enough and I can't get into the menus to change the settings lo low.

I don't know a lot about SC2 nor do I play it but I did notice this and thought it might interest posters on this thread.

I consider Starcraft II to be the most expensive game I've ever bought - by the time you throw in the €300 for a better video card!

Richard Bannister wrote:


Am I to assume that you mean the Radeon HD 4870? Shame you bought that just now with Apple bringing out new Mac Pros this month, and likely 5870s along with it - the 5870 thoroughly trounces the 4870, is quieter, and uses a ton less power. And unless your machine is a 1,1 model Mac Pro (I suspect yours is a later model), it can run the card since you don't have to worry about whether or not the card's ROM is EFI64 or EBC as I would have to (my Mac Pro is a 1,1 model, which I'm sorely irritated at Apple for because they broke the cardinal rule of supporting their enterprise level hardware for five years - they could have released an EFI64 upgrade at any time).

Anyway, I hope you really enjoy the game. I won't be able to join you for a long while, if ever, since I currently will not purchase anything made by Blizzard after what they did with my b.net account. Suffice it to say that I filed a legal complaint requesting an investigation into possible fleecing of customers by creating "fake" authenticators attached maliciously to owners' accounts, forcing said owners to attempt removal of fake authenticator and then the owner would be in enough fear to buy their own authenticator to "protect" themselves in the future (the profits add up fast for millions of WoW subscribers). Not 24 hours passed after that complaint and request for investigation were filed when my account was suddenly and miraculously "fixed", without so much as me providing any valid info on who I am to verify my authenticity. That is no coincidence, as standard proceedure takes about two weeks total turnaround time, and not one but two faxed forms of legitimate ID, neither of which I was even asked for.

So I really want to play, but the circumstances are just too "coincidental" for somebody that doesn't believe in coincidences. Blizzard is a behemoth - situations like mine are very "typical" this year, and they don't get resolved this quickly. Ever. And never without proper ID. Mine did, in <24 hours. Just something to think about for ya.

I shall live vicariously through you and the many others enjoying SC2. I'll join up and challenge you if and when they regain my trust.

You don't have to buy an authenticator if you have a smartphone. They're free. Sounds like an overreaction to me.

No smartphone here. I have no need for one as I only use a phone as...well, a phone (for now). I wouldn't mind an iPhone, but CrapT&T is all that we're allowed to use them on in the US without jailbreaking them, and that particular carrier (which is what I have since I'm in a family plan with my grandparents) has dead spots galore even in the Bay Area here.

As for overreaction...care to explain the "coincidences" of my account restoration so quickly when nearly everybody else afflicted with the same problem a) takes roughly two weeks for a complete turnaround time and b) must show two forms of ID to Blizzard (via fax) to restore their account? Sorry Charlie, I don't believe in coincidences.

I've pretty much been a heavy fan of Blizzard since the Diablo 2 and SC/BW days. They had my trust, even though I knew their original b.net wasn't secure in the least (their new one isn't very secure either, but they're being forced to improve that). They've had 13 years of trust from me. But their actions, sadly a likely result of Activition's essential takeover of the company, have pretty much erased that trust. I sat out the RealID debate that went on for nearly 2500 pages (damn near 50,000 posts), mostly because I had already disabled (through a VERY obscure and purposely buried control) RealID on my account.

Waht got me to stop playing WoW was the new chat system and the forced Facebook-esque style of in-game communication. I'm sorry, but I don't like Facebook. I have no need for it, other than to keep tabs on my brother's whereabouts (family issues). I keep my data and identity very private. I cannot find a single hit, not one from Google, Facebook, Myspace, Bing, or even the ever watchful spokeo.com when I search for my name. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. As I'm rather technically savvy, I am able to monitor my processes very easily in OS X. I have no keyloggers, or obviously my financial info and/or username/password to every site I visit would have been used against me by now. I use throwaway emails when necessary, and two separate non-personal email accounts for other things I need to keep closer track of, giving out my personal info only to a very select few, and opting out of any data sharing practices when I'm able to.

So please, tell me how my b.net account info was compromised, just days after I changed my password? Bare in mind that any legit emails from Blizzard go to my first of two secondary email accounts, yet all the phishing stuff went to a different account. I've had no issues with my login prior to the deal between ActivisionBlizzard and Facebook. That's six years, never having changed my password once because nobody else ever had it. Yet I change my password once just to be safe, and...BAM. I'm compromised? Logically speaking the possibility of that happening is beyond remote. You can call it all circumstantial and/or paranoid all you want, but there are just way too many "circumstances" that coincided to be coincidental.

While several of my family members have had their identity stolen, the closest I've ever come to that is my Discover Card # being swiped during a security breach at monoprice.com, and I caught the very first fraudulent transaction less than four hours after it happened. I'm that thorough with my info. Consequently I now use secure online number generation from Discover to avoid that scenario again.

So, assuming b.net is "secure" (it isn't - not when its login is your email and the default is "keep me logged in", thus storing both email and password in a cookie), my account was compromised....how? I'm the only one that ever touches this computer, I'm behind a firewall, I have no trojans, no keyloggers, and I'm smart enough to actually have things like NoScript and ClickToFlash installed. Like I said - it just doesn't add up.

I'm damn good at protecting myself and my info. For me to become "compromised" just after I change my password, yet not become compromised anywhere else I go to (online shopping for example), then file a complaint requesting an investigation (by an outside source), and suddenly my account is restored within 24 hours, without having to go through the mandatory "two forms of ID faxed to account management" routine, the planets would have to align themselves and the sky start falling, literally.

No, this is no overreaction. It's putting 2 and 2 together only to see it end up always being 5, which means that something else other than myself was part of the equation. Up until the deal with Facebook, only two entities had my info: Blizzard, and myself. It doesn't take a genius to figure out which party was responsible for this.

Squishy Tia wrote:


Yeah I think I'll stand by my original reply.

I even have a POS gaming box and I won't pay $60 for this game despite wanting it real real bad. Once they throw out an expansion and bundle it for like $50 I'll consider it. Shame on Blizzard it's not like they are not making enough on WoW. My fear is Diablo will come out and be $70...

vitaflo wrote:


So in other words, you have nothing to refute this, and chose to go the typical WoW forum post route. Gotcha.

BTW, it's "over 9000!".

Pixelcade wrote:


The game price itself isn't so bad, especially since from what I've read SC2 indeed did live up to the 10 year hype. What's bad is the Collector's Edition, with isn't $75 or $80 (US), it's $100. That is milking the cow and then some. Not even the WoW Collector's Sets were that much at launch.

Collector's Edition aside, the game itself is worth every penny if you're an RTS or even just an SC/BW fan. It's the company that's gone bananas.

Squishy Tia wrote:


A WoW expansion is coming out soon, I thought I could inflate the stats a bit.

I'm not sure how I can refute allegations that neither of us know to be true or not. You've obviously made up your mind on this matter. No amount of reply is going to change that. I guess I just don't draw the same conclusions from this as you do. That's about it.

No worries here. At least others are enjoying the game(s). I actually dismissed most of the conspiracy theories over the years myself, figuring nothing like that would ever really even remotely possibly be true. Then it started. The waves, and waves, and waves of compromised accounts, just after the Facebook deal went through. Even then I figured it had to be just people not being secure. Then I get an authenticator attached to my account, knowing full well that not one other soul besides Blizzard's servers had my info. Six years and not one password change; no incidents. But the instant I do change my password, suddenly I find an authenticator on my account four days later.

Funny thing is, under normal circumstances, account thieves will change the password to the account, yet my newly created password was still there. That made zero sense. Most players I've heard of/from regarding the authenticator attacks like this had their PW changed so they couldn't log into their accounts, then said accounts were wiped clean of all gold/items that could be vendored, which would indicate gold sellers getting into accounts. Yet mine went untouched. One thing to note is that my account for WoW was inactive since June 27th. The authenticator was attached in the beginning of July. So there was no way to steal from me even if it was a gold seller hack. Funny thing is, I was able to re-change my password for the account while the authenticator was on it.

There's just way way, way too much evidence pointing to an inside compromise and not a 3rd party attack. With this much evidence, stating it "couldn't possibly happen" is like a detective saying that there's a serial killer out there, another victim was found with a specific MO, but since no murder weapon was found it couldn't possibly have been the serial kiler.

What I find truly ironic during this whole debacle is that the emails phishing for my data all went to one of my secondary emails, which have never, ever had anything gaming related, let alone Blizzard related associated with it, yet the email associated with my b.net account didn't get any phishing mails at all, save for one, after the authenticator was placed onto my account (it was a lure inviting me to SC2 beta the very day they sent out the final wave of invites). Looked pretty damned authentic too. Unfortunately for the phisher, I always either manually type in the battle.net login address, or navigate from the main WoW site itself, where I know the link is safe.

The chances of one or two of these events coinciding are a possibility. The chances of them all being a coincidence? I have a better chance of winning the lottery...twice in a row. The sad thing is, I don't think Blizzard itself is completely responsible for this. I'd bet my last dollar that it's Robert Kotex...er, Kotick that is behind this mess. That bloodsucking tampon continues to destroy good gaming companies from the inside out, and I have no doubt Blizzard is being eaten alive by him. But because of the actions that occured, the trust itself is gone. The fact that it hasn't happened to everybody or even "you", where the you is whoever reads this, doesn't mean it hasn't happened.

There's a saying: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I don't intend to be fooled twice.

I may have been taken out of context here. I love SC. Had the original on launch same with expansion and have the Marine figure on my shelf over my computer as well as read the 2 comics that just came out last/this year. My point is there was a day where if a game cost $60 it was unthinkable. There's no value in games now. Does anyone else here that is in the older age bracket remember the Atari/Coleco even the early NES days games were around $30-$40 and it was a HUGE deal if you got one. Now it doesn't matter if a company like Blizzard that made some of the great mid dos era games and pushed the RTS into a new day by taking a lesson from Dune 2 can openly charge that much. How many people buying that game even have the hardware to play it at it's best? **warning rant** *unplug*

Anyway I did get a chance to play it and it is an OUTSTANDING follow-up but $60 worth of a follow up? That's all up to you. I'll wait for the battle chest and play at my friends.

Pixelcade wrote:


FWIW, Warcraft 3 was also $60 when it came out in '02. I also remember paying $85 for Phantasy Star for my Master System in '88.