Starcraft 2

Well its about friggin time. Just wanted to be the first to post this here...

http://media.pc.ign.com/media/850/850126/img_4560195.html

I had a slight hunch about this the other day, when seeing the frontpage of the blizzard.com site.

I dunno about you guys, but I was a pretty big sc guy back in the day. I'm pretty stoked on this.

I'm just wondering if its only a graphics/control upgrade, or if there's some other twists in store... still scrambling for more info..

Video linkage

http://tvpot.daum.net/theme/ThemeView.do?themeid=122&lu=m_mono_1

You know blizzard.

you didn't really believe that they are able to create ground breaking stuff within 12-18 months do you?
Especially after the really good people left blizzard years ago ...

The Blizzard we've known is now working either for NCSoft on Guildwars (D2 team) or doing an RTS (can't remember where) on their own

I'm not really expecting it be groundbreaking, just curious if there were any twists.

Graphically it looks great... esp watching the video. I figure they'll update the controls/user interface. Thats the hardest thing about going back from warcraft 3 to starcraft. War3 just has so many nice control features that starcraft doesn't.

But I tend to prefer the starcraft theme, and macro vs micro( ie, war3 is about controlling few units well on a tactical level ) so this could be really really cool.

As you wouldn't be able to go back from WC3 to SC, I am not able to go back to "no overview want to be RTS" like the ones Blizzard and Westwood created for a decade, so I hope they play SupCom at least once and get some idea of what tactic and intuitive input shemes actually means. Button bashing and hotkey smashing isn't exactly stategy, thats shooter for people to stupid to aim.

They had a few nice new stuff on that vid, although most of it is heavily inspired by C&C RA 2, C&C 3 and SupCom from what I've seen (jet pack based infantrie that jumps down the cliffs, tripod with fat laser and the like)

I'm excited. Even if the entire team is different, the current Blizzard team aren't slouches. Perhaps the story won't be as good.. Which would be sad. But I expect the gameplay to be at least like SC + new control schemes. Perhaps some new units here and there and at least 2 new races... possibly 3 ...

Xel'Naga, Proto-Zerg and perhaps something else.. Subdivision of the Terrans perhaps? UED + Resistance?

Long as it isn't going to be space-orcs I'm cool :P

I'd also be surprised if the heroes aren't overhauled with more RPG elements.. which I don't want, but would deal with.. Can always make oldschool maps with heroes turned off like i did with WC3 initially.

Of-course.. I would LOVE a completely new thing going.. But they won't do that in all likelyhood. It is really hard to take one of if not the best games ever and do another one.. that's REALLY high hopes... And if anyone can do it, it is Blizzard, New people or not.

EDIT

I didn't say -playable- races.. They might be.. but at least they'll be like the Naga were in Warcraft 3

Sorry to do this, but those screenshots to me look like the same old Starcraft 1 with some 3D graphics. Okay, it is a sequel, but the original is at this point very old and RTSs have changed significantly; at this point, people are not overly fond of having to micromanage eight billion units at the same time, and as a result it looks really ugly when you have screenshots consisting entirely of units that are all exact replicas of each-other.

It's nicer in action, and probably still rather fun. Starcraft fans will be happy, anyway. (I was never a Starcraft fan, so my opinion is irrelevent).

Well that was part of the Brill of SC wasnt it. You didnt have to Micro manage the zerg at all, and what with the new no limet to a selection number, with three presses you can now have 200 Zerglings attack.

I like that fact that it looks like its going to play like sc1. If you look at the "Map" in the corners, you can see that there is some sort of zoom and rotate. So we dont really know yet to what point you can zoom out.

This is true. Hoping the zoomed out view could be useful! It would be great if clusters of units were selectable as a single icon. (Since they always end up being huge clusters together. That's what bothered me with Starcraft that they have a good chance to fix here without angering the majority of people that really liked the game).

Sigh.... I am still trying to finish the first one.. been stuck on the 7th Protoss mission for years now.... :D

Cheers

Garion

Nah - there are still at least five races they haven't plagiarized from Games Workshop yet - I'm guessing the Necrons or Orks are next.

Also they have to beat Dawn of War (which currently counts seven races) and is (along with it's WW2 cousin Company of Heroes) pretty much the game to beat. Starcraft with prettier graphics isn't gonna cut it.

Is this really supposed to look good? It was a scene far too common in the original Starcraft: Hundreds of absolutely identical characters all performing the exact same motion all charging at the same place and disappearing into thin air in the exact same way.
I like the immense swarm idea for the Zerg, but they really need to be more manageable and more fun to watch. Some variation in their movements, spacings and appearance could go a long way. That there reminds me of one of those never-ending Gif animations...

Alas, that, at least, seems to have been ignored for the sequel. At this point swarm attacks involving multitudes of units that are all managed individually are ugly, ridiculous and dated.

This isn't to say that kind of unmanageable masses thing doesn't add character to the game. I can't be the only one who trusted my guys to manage themselves for a little while, only to find them a while later completely incinerated after provoking a ginormous attack from an enemy base. At the time it kind of sucked, but in retrospect it is funny (Yay!) and I hope for more -- although hopefully in a more interesting way that actually is genuinely amusing. ("Bah, to hell with orders!", rather than "Uuuh, we're being useful! Oh, what's this? An enemy base? Ooooh, I'd better harvest their resources for no reason then continue on my way like some kind of soulless zombie... *BOOOOM* *Mission failed*")

It needs to be unmanageable in a way that keeps the system transparent. You are not being held back, as in Starcraft, by an evil interface that is out to get you and the severe difficulties associated with selecting a huge number of marines but not any workers. Instead, you are being held back in a more realistic way: By your inability as a commander to control thousands of units at the same time.

Time will tell, I guess. Blizzard knows what they're doing :)

Well from what I understand, it's still early days.

Nope, Ok, so they are not even talking release date yet. But from reading the QandA and interviews, I get the impression that the "game" part of the game is practicly finished.

The Engine isn't hardly the 'game' part of the game.. it is the backbone. Tons of balancing and tactical issues would be yet to be resolved.

I don't know what game pickles was playing... maybe he forgot he had a keyboard? You know you can double click on a unit to select 12 of the same unit type... right?

Once I learned some of the basic keyboard commands I never found myself in the position where I couldn't control my units and I was fighting the interface rather than the enemy...

And only a complete NOOB rushes random swarms of units into a base.. sure.. the key with the zerg is numbers, but it is controled groups of numbers of units backed up with smaller teams of precision deployment.. A rush of units as a distraction + hitting their base from behind with a team of hydralisks back up by Guardians. Take out all their workers and most of thier buildings and if you can put all their workers and their main structure to rest, you've pretty much won the game, provided you are poised to take out any expansion bases as well...

Just watched the Gameplay video. Seems they are shooting for even more potential strategy than in the first one. Which is good. And it seems likely that they are trying to prevent some of the more killer strategies from the first game from being effective.. Which makes sense in the world, since you would create counter-measures to the things that can defeat you easily.

Over-all I am happy with what they are showing.. My only worry is that the new height-jumping units will render a lot of defencive building obsolete.. But I'm sure there will be counter-measures in that regard as well.. They want to make the races play even more distinctly.. one way is to give the Terran more defencive structures, or better types, since the Zerg seem even less structurally centered than in the first game with Nydus Worms and hopefully other de-centralized buildings.. and the Protoss are very mobil and could easily sacrifice entire sub-bases as attack strategies.. Making the Terran more defencive would make sense.

After all, the primary use of the floating buildings was as an escape plan. Rarely was it effective to use them to expand, but even then, it is base-building and is in essence defencive by nature.

The lack of Zerg info makes me hopefull that they did more over-hauls.. Perhaps more in-battle upgrades into different unit types. I would never have upgraded hydralisks or mutalisks mid-battle like they did the zerglings here... It also seems they do even less damage and will hopefully cost less.. full-realizing their swarming potential..

All-in-all I am very happy with this video they released.

Very happy.

Now I can't wait.

Anyone know if it's going to be subscription based online play?

I'm curious if anyone who commented on the screenshots even looked at the video. It looks pretty damn good in motion :)

After a quick read about the new protoss units... I think this game will stand on its own quite well.

It'll be free online play like the origional SC. I can't imagine they would charge for a non-MMO game...

I think it looks great. Lacks all those silly things that look terrible in other games. Makes up for it with about a million units on screen at once.

I did get a little confused in the end tho.. Some of the units aren't distinct enough that I could instantly recognise them... Especially on the Terran side.

Hopefully they work on that...

Probably a bit like Hellgate London.

doubt it FD... I mean... What could they possibly give an alternate group of players? If it was Diablo 3... I could possibly see something like that.. But.. Aside from starting with more resources or something else cheap-ass like that.. I can't think of anything... Additional units? It would ruin the game..

Maybe the ex-Diablo crew are cool with ruining their game.. or maybe these elite players will have access to alternate areas and more, but not better, items. But regardless.. I don't think Blizzard is going to ruin their game to try to pull money out of people.. They understand that their success rides entirely on their integrity. If they sacrificed that integrity by squeezing their players for cash, they'll lose all those players.

Wasn't it even mentioned on the blizz page that they are going to use an upgraded battle.net

the upgraded part I think is even already mentioned in SC 1.15 patch thats comming soon with the costume ladders and the like which should have been added years ago at the start of costume leagues already :)

Yeah, should have come years ago, but If they plan to activate a good bit of it in the other games, then I understand why it has taken so long... I mean.. At least 5.. more if you count expansions.

And each with more than just cosmetic changes..