Another transmission from Shacknews at Blizzcon reveals that the three races of Starcraft 2 are going to get a game each, with each game effectively being a Starcraft 2 expandalone. That’s right: the three-campaign game we were expecting is now three distinct games.
Each campaign will be very different, with [Blizzard bossman] Pardo announcing the Zerg campaign will contain RPG elements. The Protoss campaign will likewise be differentiated by elements of diplomacy. In addition, the Terran campaign will feature a Protoss mini-campaign.
Apparently each of the campaigns has enough content to justify a full, separate release. Apparently. Hmm. Two new bits of footage after the jump.
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Maybe I should try this strategy of constant teasing with my girlfriend: Hey babe, you know, in two years, you will get multiple ***** and I will ***** like a beast so ******. But till then I just show you my ***** so you can ***** ** **** *****.
How do you know it’s more content? 0_o
From a gameplay perspective SC2 sadly looks outdated to me already. ;-)
All in all – unsuccessful troll is unsuccessful.
$1 billion in revenue a year will change a company. This and the laughable D3 quote “We are going to monetize features so that we get to make them,” said Wilson. “We kind of have to.” show Blizzard is a different company now.
And if you think you can buy the first SC2 release and just play the multiplayer and be fine, you better get your fill quickly, because the videogaming 24/7 story mentions “multiplayer upgrades” with each expansion.
Biggest wtf of the year. Has Blizzard gone money mad from WoW?
What’s this “different company” bollocks? Blizzard have always been cash hunters, nothing’s changed. You can still pay A grade price for the Diablo II battlechest if you’re not paying attention!
They get away with it because lots of people like their games. Oh noes! Company with popular, high demand product tries to maximise revenue! It’s the end of the world as we know it!
@drewski
Yes, they still sell the Diablo II battlechest for $30 because there’s still demand for it. But it’s Diablo II and an expansion in the chest, not Diablo II: Baal, Diablo II: Mephisto, Diablo II: Diablo. That’s what has changed :P.
Yes, they’ve found a new way to make their rabidly dedicated fans pay through the nose for content. I’m saying that their attitude hasn’t changed, just their methods – some of the fanbois in here seem to think that Blizzard used to be the Fairy Godmothers of Gaming, distributing gorgeous trinkets of gaming goodness for free to the little children running amok at their feet.
Same company, same attitude, different method. They do it because people will pay. Don’t like it? Don’t play Blizzard games.
I’ll wait for the inevitable Starcraft 2 Battle Chest, thank you.
I heard that three games makes more money than one game. That’s what I heard.
Blizzzard, Goin for the Threpeat on one game, bad form…
Seriously, this is one good way to alienate fanbase whilr at the same time finding out how many die hards there are. I suppose that it also going to let them see how many will come back after their battlechest of the set hits the bargain racks so they can get a slice of humble pie about pricing too.
I’m looking forward the Protoss one:
STATECRAFT: LIFE ON AIUR.
I always imagined hearing a debate between Senator Dark Templar and Governor Archon.
In all fairness, Vivendi were the ones farming out Blizzard stuff for consistently high prices because of its cash-cow nature.
Nothing is yet known about whether they will release one of these campaigns this year, right?
tactics for surviving the credit crunch:
1. bleed korea dry
Hm. Interesting. I wonder if they’re banking on catching all the sort of sub-genre fans. As in, some people may have liked the hero aspects of starcraft (or even warcraft 3, though I found the “heroes” in that to be a tedious micro-clicking chore, and it didn’t help that the main one was an annoying ponce), while others aren’t bothered, and were more interested in the story.
I’m not going to pay for three full games (read: wait until they’re all released in a bundle for a reasonable price, kids. Seriously, stop fucking buying games the minute they’re out, damn it, you’re your own worst enemies), but I would prefer that they spend the time getting a huuuge collection done well than rush out a stripped down version.
Not saying I’m happy about the idea, to be honest, not least because playing exclusively as one species for a whole game could conceivably become rather tiresome (and it seems they’re opening with the terrans, who are the most boring and conventional, like them or not). And “RPG element” invariably means “vital characters are useless for 90% of the game”. But! Let’s wait and see, shall we? The footage so far remains promising, and their taking time over it is most likely to result in better quality.
Doesn’t bother me much, I only play skirmish. It makes me sad they broke it up like that though: there’s a strong divide between people who like multi and people who like campaign modes, but I don’t think many people who play the zerg campaign will not want the protoss. If they sold multiplayer and campaign discs as different games that would be a much fairer way to portion it out and it would still give them plenty of scope for long, detailed campaigns. Of course, being fair is not maximising profits.
So… what’s with all the outrage again?
If the campaigns turn out to be less-than-full-game-size, sure, there’s plenty of reason for bitching to be had all-around. But it doesn’t sound like it, and it seems to me that each campaign really is going to be a separate, contained game in and of itself.
This also doesn’t affect the multiplayer component at all (single-player campaigns will have units that are not available in multiplayer games), which is kind of odd…
That said, until we know the full breadth of the included content and the pricing scheme they’re going to use, any bitching about Blizzard milking the hell out of their customers seems rather… presumptious. We only know they’re going to release three products, and that they’re (supposedly) going to have enough content to justify being three different games. That’s it. Calm down, folks.
Don’t they have enough money? Why is it people with so much money they have nothing to spend it on are often ruthless in aquiring yet more money. Is it addictive? Of course, I’d love to know first hand, but I miss the days of quality product being responsible for making you rich, rather than ripping the customer off.
What the hell, Internet? Until more is known about the extent and price of these games, all the wounded self-righteous rage at this announcement is… well, OK, it’s expected, but still sad.
So there are going to be three Starcraft games coming over the next few years. How terrible?
So anyway, is that a working title or what? There are few weaker words than “terran”, and “wings of liberty” sounds halfway between embarassingly HOO-rah and amusingly like a new gimmick in panty liners.
From http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/55267 :
“”[The second and third games] will be like expansion packs, but we really want them to feel like standalone products,” said Blizzard’s Rob Pardo.
(…)
The campaigns are planned as concentrated, epic storylines, with enough content to justify a full release. As a result, the games will now feature more in-game cinematics and story content.
Blizzard added that the plans for the multiplayer component are unchanged by the splitting of the campaigns. However, some units will now be unique to the campaigns and will not be playable in multiplayer.”
Right, so I’ve had a preorder for SC2 for a while now. What is that going to buy me? At what intervals are these expansions coming out in? What pricepoint are they going to retail at? Will the later ‘games’ (which tell the same story) bring anything new to the table? If not, how can you justify the triple release? I’m a fan of the Zerg, so is there no point in me buying the Terran game? If a standard RTS single player slowly introduces you to the whole techtree over the first few missions, is that viable over a staggered release?
So many questions Blizzard, so many questions.
A) I don’t want to just be able to play one race at a time (no, skirmish and multiplayer don’t count. I’ve never enjoyed either.).
B) If as they claim the alternatives were to push the game back further or cut content, I would happily have picked “push the game back further”. I don’t care when the game comes out as long as it’s good when it does. (I have *plenty* of other things to play.) I do care if it’s only a third of the experience. And obviously I’d much rather spend $50-80 (the latter for a CE) than $150+ if they wind up being priced as full games. Or even $90 if they all hit the $30 expansion price point.
I don’t know whether someone besides me commented on this in the thread, but I’m pretty sure all 3 races are in the first version of the game, because whatever the first race they release is, it can hardly fight itself all the time =/
And if they put em in, it’s probable that they will be playable. I would suppose they go for the extra units and extra campaign approach pretty much everyone uses.
I keep reading this “a third of the experience” thing, and it just strikes me as rather like a child going ‘gimme-gimme!’. I mean, a third of the experience, in this case, is already the same as one full game. The ‘full experience’ would be three times what you usually get with these sort of games, and that’s just not necessary.
Also, to anyone who’d force all of us who actually like the multiplayer component to wait for several more years for their sake… that’s just not very nice, is it?
Time really has nothing to do with this at all, and Blizzards claim otherwise seems rather disingenuous: the original game came out A DECADE AGO. I don’t think Starcraft’s audience would mind waiting another 2 years if that’s how long the delay would have taken. And how do you delay a game that has no release date set to begin with?
Try reading an article or two. Each game will have an equal number of missions as the original starcraft had total. That means its a FULL game of Protoss, a FULL game of Terran, and a FULL game of Zerg missions.
Troll? My ass. This thread is just full of whiners. If you don’t want to buy the campaign, don’t buy it. You’ll still get the multiplayer with each iteration of the game. No need to cry your eyes out.
Another problem is boredoom. This convert SC2 in a RTS game with a single campaing, a single race. Theres one reason why all RTS games have more than one race, is beause a single race get old fast. I fear thet SC2 singleplayers will be terrible boring. I have to say that Terrans is my less favorite race from all. Generic supersoldiers? Gaaaah.
@Zyrusticae:
Let me explain the way I see it, and you can let me know what you think.
HL2 and its episodes are used as examples frequently throughout this post, so I’ll go with that.
HL2 is released. It features maps, a base set of weaponry, a set of play mechanics and features, etc etc etc.
So the episodes are released. So far episodes 1 and 2 may feature new gameplay mechanics, weapons, and enemies but the entirety of the HL2 experience is contained within each episode. What made HL2, HL2 is there. The only thing incomplete is the storyline.
In Starcraft’s case, the game was released with 3 races in single play & multiplay, a specific set of play mechanics, etc etc etc.
Yet for SC 2, you aren’t getting the entirety of the SC experience within each episodic pack. The first retail release of SC 2 will be missing parts that were included in the first game. There are parts of the experience of SC that are not being included, and worse yet they aren’t being included because Blizzard wants more money.
Its not a matter of “gimme gimme gimme!”, its about SC2 not including things that SC1 did. Like the other 2 races.
For what its worth by the way, I have no intention of buying into this. When Blizzard does a SC2 Battle chest with all of the content for under $80 US, I’ll pick it up. But I really don’t like the precedent this sets.
Going from “it’ll likely come out in 2009″ to “it’ll likely come out in 2012″, that’s how.
Some would argue the single-player campaign is not a very significant part of a competitive RTS like SC. And it’s the people more interested in the single-player campaign that this move is catering to, anyway: you’ll get more fleshed out campaigns with more cinematics. Sure, you won’t get all of them right now, but what you will get eventually will be of higher quality.
If it’s a “ten single-player maps played with the same race” you’re looking for, there’s the editor for that. Also, you could always just pretend that SC2 isn’t out until the Battlechest is released.
Parts of it not being included because Blizzard wants more money?
For crying out loud, it’s a FULL CAMPAIGN that’s as big as the ENTIRE Starcraft campaign for EACH individual race! It has nothing to do with money and everything to do with their (possibly overreaching) ambition to create an insanely epic campaign!
And they’re still including the other two races, you’re just fighting against them for a longer period of time. It really shouldn’t matter, anyways. People playing through Gears of War don’t care that they’re playing through the game with a single character, often with the exact same weapons, are they? If the game gets ‘boring’ just because you’re getting very familiar with a single race, then obviously they failed at making the game good enough. But I detest the idea that you MUST switch races every X missions or the game WILL get boring just because you want the mechanics to change THAT much every so often. (I find that especially funny considering games like Supreme Commander, where all the sides have identical mechanics, and here we have a game with three separate sides, all with unique mechanics…)
Boy I really miss the editing function. Could we at least get a Preview button? Just lost a big response to Zero with poor formatting on my part =-/
History has told us that Blizzard games have a strong tendency to release 2 years after the time of announcement. Many people consider that a good time to expect a release. If they miss the date because they decided to finish all three campaigns first, people will notice. Trust…
Some would argue that the singleplayer campaign isn’t a big part of Starcraft. Some would be drastically wrong.
Of course its about money though. They even hinted at microtransactions for Diablo 3 yesterday:
Diablo III director Jay Wilson said today that the company does not have a great desire to charge a subscription fee for the upcoming revision of its multiplayer client Battle.net. However, the developer did note that Blizzard will likely monetize unknown features of the game. “We are going to monetize features so that we get to make them,” said Wilson. “We kind of have to.” Wilson noted that whatever the content would be, it would have an appropriate value to users.
There’s nothing wrong with this all being about money. Blizzard is a business. But lets not pretend that the splitting up of SC2 is some altruistic deal. This is about Blizzard maximizing profits off one of the biggest games of all time.
I’m trying to understand the point you’re making about GoW, but I can’t make the connection. Could you elaborate on that further?
I find expansion packs and microtransactions incredibly annoying. I’m glad I waited until The Orange Box to finally play the HL2 series and, in general, only buy gold editions, battle chests, and compilations. Fuck ‘em.
I know game developers have to make a profit, but, I’m finding this decision as hard to swallow as the realisation at the end of Crysis was that the game was being planned as a trilogy all along and I didn’t know (A significant factor in me refusing to by warhead).
This just got added to my wait for budget release/not bother list.
If maximizing profits is achieved through a better game, go right ahead. If it’s the worst case scenario of a single 150$ game chopped into three parts, the blame would still fall on the people who buy into it, not Blizzard. They can only sell it for as much as people are willing to pay for it, after all.
we’ve only heard about the terran campaign because it’s the only one that’s close to finished. (or started?)
that’s why they’re splitting them, to push a street release date of a viable multiplayer sc2.
And here I thought people overreacted to posts about Piracy and/or Fallout.
ROFL. Now this is one funny bunch of comments :)
Regarding pricing – I would gladly pay price HL2, Crysis, Tiberiums Wars and Call of Duty 4 all for one Diablo 2 LoD, simply becase it would still be bargain price – since I have played it 10+ times more then all those games together.
Same with Starcraft & BW. So if Starcraft 2 is at least as good as those games (and hopefully we’ll see when the game is finally released), I will have no problems purchasing other possible ‘episodes’.
Depends on what you’re going to get out of the game, even with the polish I’m expecting in SC2, I only have so much money and time, I’ll no doubt work through as much of the single player campaign as I am able and shelf it. If its released in a packed christmas season, it’ll automatically get downgraded on my buying list because I know I can get a much better deal by waiting for a multi-pack (Though interestingly I didn’t make that choice for HL2 episodes, I’ve bought those as they’ve come out – most likely because the episodes became public knowledge farely soon, whereas I’m now distant enough from starcraft 1 to be able to be very patient with it).
I see knee-jerk baseless indignation has found its way to RPS. What a silly thread. :)
Let’s not ignore the fact that each campaign is supposed to be a full and self-contained game in and of itself. How is that not a good deal for the players? Are single-player games so devalued that you’d refuse to pay full price for a full game? I mean, cripes, I just don’t get it…
And I mention Gears of War because the ‘I must be able to play through all sides!’ mentality is something unique to RTSes. Shooters never deal with this sort of thing, as players are just fine with going through the game as a single character with a limited selection of weapons. Amusingly, an RTS game like Starcraft gives you a multitude of units and a multitude of ways to use them together, which means they actually have more gameplay variety than almost any shooter.
Is it because the shooters are twitch-based (though Starcraft is easily just as twitch-based as any shooter)? I mean, why is the RTS genre held onto such a higher standard? If a FPS game gets away with telling one side of the story, why wouldn’t an RTS be allowed the same leisure? The only reason I can think of is precedent, as almost every RTS before (save the original Dawn of War, and Homeworld 2, and I’m sure there’s a few more that I’ll fail to mention in my ignorance) has allowed players to play each side. But that shouldn’t be a requirement. Frankly, I think it’s lazy. It’s more difficult to make a compelling story told from the perspective of a single side than it is to tell it from three different, conflicting sides, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.
“Of course, there’s always the possibility that I’m wrong and that they actually are significant stand-alone products in and of themselves, there’s a first time for everything, right?”
Yeah, Blizzard has pretty much released trash up until now. I mean, I don’t even remember their games – some Fightcraft or something? 1, 1x, 2, 2x, 3, 3x, all really sucked.
Then some stupid cash-in on pay for multiplayer or some such.
At least they don’t have some devil games….
I think a bigger overarching problem I have with this is that I’m not quite sold on the concept of episodic content delivery. When it comes to AAA game releases, I haven’t really seen any that have benefited the consumer any; while HL2 has been doing it for a few years, I’m almost positive when you add up the dev time of all 3 episodes, it will add up to the amount of time it took to develop HL1/2. So how is the consumer benefiting?
But after reading through the comments here, I guess it comes down to how much you feel the the content is worth to you. Which is really whats most important. So I’ll accept that many people won’t mind this much, and SC2 will do well. I don’t think I’ll be purchasing it, but I hardly doubt Blizzard is worried about me too much :D
That said, does any get the feeling that this move sets an interesting precedent? I bet a ton of publishers are looking at this with bated breath, as this is more or less a developer trying to do a DLC-like system for the PC.
Did anyone, anywhere, ever believe that episodic content was actually going to benefit the consumer?
I wouldn’t need to play every side in an RTS campaign if there were only one side playable, period, like in an FPS. But if you’re going to go to the work of providing a fully playable faction with its own nuances and strategies, they need a singleplayer campaign. Nothing in RTSes is more frustrating to me than being forced to play boring, flavorless skirmishes in order to play with half of the cool toys in the game.
Eh, I don’t know that I would like a game with a campaign for only one side. I don’t really play MP, and from playing SC recently, I think I would start to get bored of one faction by 1/3 of the game. They’ll going to be rationing out new units much more tightly this time around, I guess.
I don’t know why they didn’t do a smaller campaign for each side, and then release a couple of expansions. It’s their traditional model and it works. It’s also the HL2 model, really. They had shooting, driving, puzzles, all interspersed to keep you from burning out. The episodes also had a good mix of gameplay, and introduced new mechanics. If HL2 was released the way SC2 is supposed to be, the original would be a straight up run and gun FPS, episode 1 would be a portal-like puzzle game, and episode 2 would be a city-17 themed racing game. True, different missions will have somewhat different mechanics, but the really interesting differences are between the factions and their unit mix and resource structure.