UPDATE: This story on VG247 suggests that they really mean it: no LAN support of any kind. Bananas.
An abundance of Starcraft II stuff has appeared on the grainy info screens of RPS HQ, including project lead Dustin Browder saying that the beta is set to last “four to six months”. Which means they’ll be right up against it if they’re aiming to get the game out before Christmas. In rather more bizarre news, Blizzardian hyperboss Rob Pardo has said that that the game won’t support a LAN option, and that the decision not to include it “is because of the planned technology to be incorporated into Battle.net.” Which presumably means they are going to support play over a local network, but you’ll still need to be online and logged into Battlenet on individual accounts to play. Maybe. I could be quite, quite wrong.
Seven minutes of footage – watch those tiny dudes eviscerate! – courtesy of Joystiq, below.
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nobody is being ‘fucked’ or ‘assraped’ as i often read. Some people have made a video game. You may decide to buy it, or to not do so. Thats as dramatic as it gets tbh.
A remarkable percentage of gamers should print that out and put it next to their monitor.
@ bookwormat
“So why do you want Blizzard to make a game that is like Dawn of War 2 if there is already Dawn of War 2 ?”
That’s not quite what I meant. The point is that there have been a lot of interesting innovations in the RTS formula over the last 15 years. Doom 1 didn’t let you look up or down or use the mouse, yet you probably would not play a new FPS that forced you to do those things for the sake of nostalgia. Starcraft was/is a wonderful game, but I don’t think anyone can deny that the UI and micro/unit management is a little dated by this point, along with the limited amount of units you can lasso and control effectively. Combined with the very rigid build-orders, it eventually makes for a stale game (imho). You spend the first third of every-single-match you ever play online doing the exact same things, ad nauseum. I don’t see the fun in having to go through the motions of building the same drones in the same order to build the same buildings for 5 minutes, just to get to the ‘fun’ part of the game when you finally start fighting. They are sprucing up the visuals without dealing with some of the core underlying gameplay issues…. after a while Starcraft ends up being more about twitch-reaction timing with your mouse and less about strategy, since everyone is building pretty much the same exact units/buildings in the same order a few months after release anyway. IMHO that’s just not what I’m interested in in an RTS. If I wanted gameplay that rewarded twitch reaction speed I’d be playing a shooter, not a military strategy game. I think it’s more fun when you beat your opponent through clever tactics and intelligent decisions, rather than having to play the game in full on spastic mode clicking 1000 times a minute in order to be competitive,
@ EyeMessiah
“How about not having to worry about optimal speed-builds and managing little drones and economy.”
Those things are precisely what starcraft is about. If you take those away you are talking about a different game entirely. I’m not sure I’d like to see Blizz “innovate” quite so dramatically.”
That’s a fair point, it’s just that it would be nice for Blizzard to roll the dice just a little bit and stay away from the safe sure-thing. I guess I’m just seeing SC1 with brighter colors. It’s not *bad* it’s just not interesting (to me). 2 million people paying montly fees for WOW means they certainly aren’t hurting for money, they could try for something new…I used DOW2 as an example because I happen to like the direction they took for the sequel. It’s certainly not perfect, but the gameplay is just the right style for my tastes, and I really respect Relic’s willingness to try something outside of the box. I have a lot of the same issues with DOW1 that I do with Starcraft. Anyway…..
@ Nalano
Right on.
“Ranger: What is this about most people barely playing RTS for the multiplayer?
I mean, I’ve heard statistics to that effect before, but they tended to be older. This is 2009. Multiplayer isn’t an afterthought to the main show anymore– especially with a game that has as much of an e-sports presence as Starcraft.”
StarCraft and to a lesser extent WarCraft III are the only games of this kind which have such a big e-sports presence. And a Blizzard title already sells a huge lot more copies by default just because of the brand so a few more folks go online then. But that still doesn’t mean everyone would want to go on Battle.net (if it works, I can’t play StarCraft over Battle.net against certain friends either, it’s no better or worse than other RTS matchmaking services in that regard). Relic recently said it’s only 10% of their own audience that takes the leap online and they have good reasons to suspect it isn’t much different with other RTS titles. DoW II does appeal more to people who didn’t play RTSs online before because of the more accessible game design but there were certain fans who didn’t like the changes either.
Playing an RTS match is a lot more confronting than jumping in a FPS deatmatch game anyway. It feels a lot more like work too as there’s not only the click-as-much-as-you-can-pls-because-we-couldn’t-come-up-with-a-better-interface-and-we-believe-clicking-a-lot-is-a-sign-of-real-skillz-just-like-playing-an-FPS-with-keyboard-only-controls-is mantra but there is also the fact that pretty much every RTS aside from RoN hides way too much data/information (which you need to learn by hand to be moderately competitive).
Also, for those folks who think certain SCII critics are asking for the game to be more like DoW II, that’s really not it. We already got DoW II idd and that’s a great game which gave me something new and fresh. We don’t need a clone in almost the exact same setting. ;) But SCII just doesn’t want to do any thrilling new stuff on the multiplayer side other than trying to provide the best tools and matchmaking for a game which in many regards is still stuck in a pre-1998 mindset. Replacing/tweaking units, making marginal UI/shortcut improvements and emulating a 2D RTS feel in a very stylish 3D engine is all they’re shooting for. No Xel’Naga race is pissing me off a bit as well after the revelations in Brood War. So yeah, excuse me for not being too excited about SCII multiplayer/skirmish when the RTS genre has proven numerous times it can be so much more than that. Blizzard might win the internet with that SCII singleplayer campaign though, at least that shows they’re aware time has moved on.
“At some point, developers and publishers decided that they could get more sales by removing LAN play from a single disc (which is basically saying “lets give them less value and they’ll buy more product!”). I’m not sure whether it’s worked or not, but sadly it wouldn’t surprise me if it had.” – Vinraith
Very true. I would not have bought a second copy of Left 4 Dead if it had a easy way to set up a LAN with one copy.
Interesting stuff. I wasn’t convinced about SC2 to start with, having never played the first more than once. Not being able to play it over Garena with my mates though? That’s a guaranteed no-sale for me ; )
Remember when War3 came out and people went wth is up with this hero/creep system? SC was always the best at combining the micro/macromanagement, if it lost that then it wouldn’t matter that you couldn’t play it on a LAN, because no one would be playing it.
To be honest we want SC with prettier colors :)
Sure, if they could innovate even more and make it the game to end all strategy games then I’d be first in line to get it, but considering how small a chance there is of that happening I think I’ll just settle for the awesomeness of SC 1.2
So yeah, excuse me for not being too excited about SCII multiplayer/skirmish when the RTS genre has proven numerous times it can be so much more than that.
When?
After 1998. Dawn of War 1&2, Company of Heroes are obvious examples, but hardly the only ones. Homeworld would be an example too. Perhaps SupCom, if you’re into that. I can’t really get excited about SC2 either. We played this already, a decade ago. If Blizzard wants to ignore a decade of progress in the genre, that’s their choice, but it doesn’t make it easier for me to get hyped up about the game.
As far as I’m concerned, I bought this game a decade ago. They’ll have to add something new if they want my money again.
@ cliffski
“nobody is being ‘fucked’ or ‘assraped’ as i often read. Some people have made a video game. You may decide to buy it, or to not do so. Thats as dramatic as it gets tbh.”
That is incorrect.
Use following situation for example: Person is looking forward to the second game in a series. They enjoyed SC1 and want SC2. Blizzard advertise SC2 and try and sell the game to you. You get excited for the game and follow the news on the game.
They then announce they are removing private LAN games, something of which you enjoyed playing in SC1 with your brother or friend and the main reason you were anticipating the release of SC2.
Its not a case of “someone made a game, if you like it buy it, otherwise stfu” which appears to be your attitude. Its a case of you may LOVE the idea and basis of a game but feel totally disillusioned to find out some of your favourite features have been stripped from the game for no real reason other than some poor attempt at DRM.
When a company creates a game, they want people to buy the game, enjoy the game, remember the game.
If they choose to take out a feature many people will enjoy/remember the game for they are shooting themselves in the foot for the future.
Imagine SC1 didn’t support LAN and we were expected to rely on their Battle.net to play on (Which died and had a long period of being out of service may I add). The SC1 tournaments which are held around the world where people EARN MONEY for playing all happen on PRIVATE LANS and still happen to this day. This wouldn’t of occured if they had to rely on Battle.net as I stated this was out of service for a period.
Would anyone kindly direct me to the nearest boycott site?
@Arturo
“The point is that there have been a lot of interesting innovations in the RTS formula over the last 15 years.”
I completely agree with this statement, but not with the implication that every innovation, even when it works, is also an improvement.
You mentioned stuff like the dated UI, eg. the limited unit selection in Starcraft. Here we have indeed seen much improvement, and it should not surprise that these improvements have found their way into Starcraft 2. There are no disadvantages to being able to select 40 units.
What I do not agree with is that Squads, or no base building or random hit calculators are an improvement. Each of this element takes as much from the gameplay as it gives, imho.
“Starcraft ends up being more about twitch-reaction timing with your mouse and less about strategy”
That’s in no way different that in DoW2, or any other RTS I have ever played. Well, maybe “Sins of a Solr Empire” is a exception, since this is very slow paced and more like an 4x game in real time. But I haven’t played that yet.
But all RTS games I played so far are not about making deep strategic decisions. The focus is on making and executing as many easy decisions as fast as possible. I would say there is definitely strategy in an RTS, but it is about as deep as it is in Tennis.
Dawn of War 2 has the same focus on build order, micro and “Actions per minute” like any other RTS game, including Starcraft. The lack on base building and the different resource system makes DoW2 a lot easier to get into and creates a lot of new, interesting strategies. But it also takes a lot of the many cool tactics that you see in Starcraft, like the scouting I mentioned earlier, and replaces them with new stuff.
And that’s why these changes cannot be called an improvement. It is not like the “cannot look down” stuff in Doom. You simply like DoW-RTS tactics more than Starcraft-RTS tactics. Which is fine of course.
“You spend the first third of every-single-match you ever play online doing the exact same things, ad nauseum”
That is not how I experience Starcraft. After the first minute or so, you send out you first spy (instantly in S2, since you start with more probes). After 2 minutes you are harassing your opponent, defend from your opponents harassment, adapt your build order to what you learned from your scout and try to build an expansion.
There are many different ways in which you can harass with only a single drone: block buildings, attack drones, build an Assimilator on your enemies gas resource, or a bunker in front of his base.
After a maximum of 5 minutes you have two larger armies constantly trying to be on the aggressive side, hurting the opponents economy while gathering as much information as you can about his movements. The battlefield usually shifts from one place to another, as both players try to keep their economy running.
I might struggle at doing all this really well in Starcraft, but I find all this stuff extremely entertaining, challenging and fun.
There is definitely also a lot of stuff that you do repetitively. But that was exactly the same thing in Dawn of War 2 or Company of Heroes.
And I did not experience any more strategy, more action or more tactics in the Dawn of War 2 beta.
The next question is… do singleplayer also need to ask the auth server?
because the first days, the service will be collapsed, so will be imposible to get online.
“When?”
While jalf says after 1998 I’d say pre-1998 as well, before the original StarCraft came out. It’s quite frightening how a lot of people still need to figure out what KKnD, Counter Action, War Wind (II), Z, Dark Reign, Uprising and Total Annihilation introduced to the RTS genre. After StarCraft’s release, well, you have Homeworld, Kohan, Warzone 2100, Rise of Nations, C&C 2: Tiberian Sun, Original War, Rival Realms, Ground Control, Earth 2150, Battle Realms, Perimeter, Impossible Creatures, Dawn of War, Age of Empires III, Company of Heroes, Supreme Commander, World in Conflict and many more games which brought new things to the RTS table.
Sure, not every innovation makes for a brilliant game and perhaps you can’t apply every existing RTS feature or new idea to a StarCraft sequel. For the multiplayer/skirmish part of StarCraft II though Blizzard seems only interested in a remake, not a leap in gameplay that many other (spiritual) sequels (Blizzard’s other games included) benefit from. The only stand-out things Blizzard has been doing is copying some units and abilities (jetpacks, black holes, motherships, mega-robots, and so on) from other RTSs. Destructible rocks, capturable radar towers, better resource crystals and line-of-sight affecting smoke/plants don’t seem very impactful to me and are just copy-work as well, in fact they’re all RTS concepts dating from before(!) the original StarCraft. Just give me something new and/or some major copied feature that’s perfectly executed and I am in, ok? :)
So yes, I think I am only going to be surprised by the SCII campaign.
Yutt has made a very decent point up there in the comments — the ability to play over LAN and ‘zomg pirates sharing one disk’, these certainly ain’t preventing the earlier RTS games from Blizzard from selling in numbers that put them on top 10 lists every month even now, years after release.
It’s like the actual market is giving all the flailing self-proclaimed experts on detrimental effect of piracy and how it must be prevented or else… a big finger.
Piracy is free advertising.
It depends. A lot of folks here understand the time and effort that goes into a game and see how it is worthwhile to purchase said game. But how many pirates are like that? Very few I’d say. For most people, this stuff is as disposable as mp3s were for many during Napster. The game means nothing, its just discardable pop trash. So why pay for it if you don’t have to?
I stopped pirating stuff after college, when I got a job, but a lot of people I know still do it like crazy, and if they’re still doing it in their late 20’s they certainly aren’t going to stop as their internet connections speed up and their hard drive gets bigger.
Yutt has made a very decent point up there in the comments — the ability to play over LAN and ‘zomg pirates sharing one disk’, these certainly ain’t preventing the earlier RTS games from Blizzard from selling in numbers that put them on top 10 lists every month even now, years after release.
It actually doesn’t take very many sales to get on the PC top 10 list nowadays. A few thousand at most (maybe even less in the summer months), so its not like StarCraft is moving tons of product. Especially if you consider virtually every other PC game is moving copy on DD services which is not reported.
What is “the PC top 10 list” ?
It’s all well and good listing every RTS under the sun SwiftRanger but how many of those games’ “innovations” can you actually apply to SC2 without drastically changing the formula.
You’ve said they’re adding a load of new stuff – however minor and copy cat-ish – so where’s the line for you?
You want SupCom’s area wide zoom camera?
The fact is they’ve got a formula – arguably the best one in terms of multiplayer – with nothing having come even remotely close in terms of balance, depth and success (bar perhaps WC3).
“What’s next? A connection required to play singleplayer too?”
This is actually already a reality with XBLA games — if your console RRoD’d and was replaced, then you need an active internet connection to play any of the games you already purchased. It really, really sucks.
SC1 would have never been the hit it was without LAN support, in fact SC1 was as big as Counterstrike in gamebars over here (before they died when internet cable costs went down and a few got robbed with casualties), and for what ? so that they can spy on and feed us ads us like Valve ? is this the “new, better and improved” DRM ? forced to stay online during gameplay ? how long until they force us to do this for the single player campaigns ? my little home lan was itching to try SC2 out, sigh, oh well, i just know someone will find a way to emulate/hack their way to LAN play, there is also the chance it would cause such and uproar in Korea that theyll be forced to add it with a patch or in one of the two “expansions” (aka, the other two thirds of the game they cut out)
This is almost as stupid as those battle reports, they dont use strategy, they just rush stupidly and if that doesnt work they are pretty much done for since they refuse to change tactics, the commentary makes it even worse, its like they are trying to make slow-grass-growing sound awesome, its not, its very very boring, and specially the whole “drone/scv/probe” race that always happens in the first 10 minutes makes me want to put my fist though the monitor
@ bookwormat
“So why do you want Blizzard to make a game that is like Dawn of War 2 if there is already Dawn of War 2?”
So why do you want Blizzard to make a game that is like Starcraft if there already is Starcraft?
We’ve progressed in these past 10 years. Supreme Commander. Company of Heroes. Dawn of War. Homeworld. Total War.
We’ve since had the implementation of cover, squads, morale, suppressive fire, reduced accuracy at range, height modifiers, rolling terrain, garrisoned buildings, strategic points, area denial, on-the-fly unit design, withdrawal mechanics…
If this is a mere graphical upgrade, then that’s why the debate’s on DRM – who wants to re-purchase the White Album?
“So why do you want Blizzard to make a game that is like Starcraft if there already is Starcraft?”
Because of the changes to UI, gameplay, campaign and editor that have already been announced and shown. It’s not as if Starcraft 2 is a remake of Starcraft.
“We’ve since had the implementation of cover, squads, morale, suppressive fire, reduced accuracy at range, height modifiers, rolling terrain, garrisoned buildings, strategic points, area denial, on-the-fly unit design, withdrawal mechanics…”
Responding to that statement would mean repeating what I wrote earlier, so I don’t.
i didnt feel like Supreme Commander progressed anything other than the super zoom feature, i did like the cover system in Company of Heroes but i dont know how that would work with scifi weapons and vehicles in SC
My initial reaction is that the no lan option is an anti hamachi measure.
@Benjamin Ferrari
I watched the video, and see no changes to gameplay. Perhaps you would like to point them out?
watching the battle reports i havent seen any changes other than a few new units and probably useless gimmicks like the “smoke screens” and the zel’naga towers that dont reveal that much to be useful, but is hard to tell since the players suck so much they might have been ignoring new features in favor of zergling rushes
@Nalano: you mean the changes to gameplay that I mentioned that make me want to play Starcraft 2, even though I have Starcraft ? Of course:
Different units in multiplayer, non linear campaign and the editor allows for advanced AI scripting and a more flexible hero system.
That’s just a sample of course, you can find most known changes (gameplay, but also UI etc) on sites like this.
I’m glad Blizzard isn’t “innovating” because an improved version of Starcraft 1 is pretty much what I want. Relic may be innovative but none of their games are remotely as good as Starcraft from a serious multiplayer perspective. Sure, they’re more cinematic and immersive at first, but that wears off about halfway through the single player campaign when you start noticing the gameyness of it all again. A Blizzard RTS’s gameplay depth lasts forever (or at least 10 years so far for Starcraft).
If Starcraft 2 sucks for not innovating, then so does Team Fortress 2.
Anyway, no LAN is Starcraft 2 is a bummer. Yet another instance of features being cut from the game in an attempt to curb piracy?
i think there is a little more there than just piracy, there is a lot to gain of forcing everyone to play while logged onto battle.net, check out Valve’s stats, you cant get those without spying on your customers the whole time they play
“A Blizzard RTS’s gameplay depth lasts forever (or at least 10 years so far for Starcraft).”
To be fair, I’m pretty sure that you could make many games last 10 years if you follow a certain formula.
Starcraft had no successor during these years, since Warcraft 3 had significantly different multiplayer mechanics (which are, by the way, also very successful) . And there was South Korea, which gave Blizzard a good reason to keep supporting the game.
I have no doubt that Dawn of War 2 could be played massively in ten years. If that happens or not is not a question of gameplay or depth imho, but how much the publisher is willing to invest.
@pkt-zer0:
“If Starcraft 2 sucks for not innovating, then so does Team Fortress 2.”
This is an astounding leap of logic, and I am afraid I must demand an explanation.
@Butler: that’s hardly every RTS under the sun, those are only a few of the strategy games that actually tried to innovate in some way and move the genre forward. StarCraft managed to “contribute” as well through quite varied races (though it took a few cues from War Wind II there), a reasonable multiplayer balance (unique, especially how it still is being patched even now) and the best linear RTS campaign ever made (trumps anything in the genre, no discussion about it), all that despite its incredibly dated interface back then.
I think it’s justified to expect a sequel after 11 years to be more than just a remake in multiplayer. Because… well, StarCraft still is popular and “deep” enough right? Where to draw a line? It’s a sequel, there is no line other than that it should be an RTS. And that’s a goddamn broad genre with many unexplored options, Blizzard shouldn’t necessarily even copy features of other games but come up with their own thing. It’s a shame that with all the money in the world they aren’t keen on going down that road.
@Benjamin Ferrari: I don’t think anyone here is complaining about the SCII campaign (which looks fresh and awesome) or the fact that the editor and the custom map options of WarCraft III are finally being transferred to a StarCraft game.
We’re talking about what is on display in those Battle Reports (skirmish/multiplayer stuff) and that just doesn’t look like a bold new RTS to me. I’ve also yet to hear a single UI change in SCII which wasn’t present in the genre before even the original game came out. That’s the big problem here, fans mostly comparing the changes to the original game and not to what other titles have done in all those years since Dune II came out. The multiplayer/skirmish part of SCII won’t inspire other RTS companies because they can’t rely on just being competent and polishing their work to make their games sell.
“To be fair, I’m pretty sure that you could make many games last 10 years if you follow a certain formula. ”
Then how come there aren’t more than a few games in a few select genres? Street Fighter III: Third Strike and Quake 3 Arena come to mind but it’s a struggle to think of others. Warcraft III was and is a wonderful game, but online DOTA has overshadowed it.
It’s true the “scene” comes from a variety of things, but you definitely need an extremely high quality game at its core.
Starcraft really isn’t that high quality.
It’s got excellent balance, but the micromanagement and unfriendly UI grate on me to no end.
I think the only reason the fanbase hasn’t moved on is because they are trying to justify all the time they’ve spent playing and learning a single game.
@Joshua: because supporting a game so it is played for 10 years after release is not immediatly profitable. For example, it requires not to release a successor and constant support. And modding tools are expensive to make.
@TCM: Here is my interpretation:
TF2 is good. TF2 did not innovate. If a game needs to innovate to be good, TF2 cannot be good. But since TF2 is good, the logical conclusion is that a game does not have to innovate to be good.
Therefore, the statement that Starcraft 2 needs to innovate to be good is false.
…So, the fact that TF2 is entirely and completely different in almost every possible way when compared to TF1 means it didn’t innovate…
I understand now!
@SwiftRanger
I argumented that many of the changes in modern RTS are not improvements, but just very different approaches.
Therefore, an RTS where these changes have been implemented is a very different game from the “traditional RTS” (let’s call it like that) that you find in Starcraft.
Therefore, someone who is looking for a modern traditional RTS is not going to find that in Relic’s games.
Therefore, you can only compare Starcraft 2’s multiplayer/skirmish mode to other games of the same genre. E.g. the Command & Conquer series.
@TCM that’s how i understood the argument. I never played TF1.
DOW2 is not perfect. I’ve been using them as an example of innovation and experimenting with new types of gameplay. They certainly get some things wrong, but they get a lot of things right. You can see the -effort- in the attempts to push some boundaries and give you some ‘wow, neat,’ features when playing multiplayer. I don’t want to spend a lot of space defending them, as they aren’t the issue.
The people mentioning the SC2’s very capable map-creator and editing features are missing the point; I don’t want to have to wade into the back-end of a game to program and get the game I want. I’m strictly talking about multiplayer retail here, and the lack of anything new and interesting in SC2.
Weather or not that is what people want is certainly a matter of opinion for each of us, but I don’t think anyone can make a good case for us seeing a -single- innovative new feature in SC2 that we haven’t seen before, 10 years ago. That’s my whole point. I guarantee a lot of people are going to love the ‘classic’ style, but I also guarantee a lot of people are going to take one look and say “is that all? You’ve been in development with a ridiculous production budget for years and years and that’s what we get from one of the top studios in the world?”
@ SwiftRanger
Good points, I agree.
“I don’t think anyone can make a good case for us seeing a -single- innovative new feature in SC2 that we haven’t seen before. That’s my whole point.”
And I do not disagree with your point. I only disagree with the idea that there should be any innovation.
Blizzard has never been a great innovator, and innovative ideas are certainly not what makes people want to play their games.
This may have already been discussed, but what will this mean for professional play? Is Blizzard not expecting any proleage (read: Sth Korean proleagues) to event attempt to adopt it? I mean, I greatly doubt it’ll replace Starcraft in pro play, but how could a new league properly form and be moderated? I guess it’ll all be over b.net…
Blizzard are the kings of ripping off ideas others have had, balancing them, and distilling them to a science.
But all of their ideas, all of their ‘lore’, everything is a rip off of some idea or another.
TF2 ignored the “improvements” made in, say, the Battlefield series. No vehicles, no RTS elements. Just plain old class-based point/flag-capturing and blasting each other in the face, as in the original. The improvements are mostly just making the game more accessible and easily understandable.
It’s still a good game, despite having the radical stuff like the Commander class cut from the game. More than that, it’s a good game because of its elegant simplicity (disregarding the unfolding silliness in recent updates). Can’t fault SC2 for taking the same approach.
@ Benjamin Ferrari
You are exactly right. What they DO do well, is put out extremely polished, generally bug-free software, that is also very easy on the eyes. Those of us annoyed by the lack of anything new are a small minority I’m sure. Millions of people bought Britney Spears albums, which is what I’m equating this as, the bubble-gum pop of RTS. Much like WOW is the shallow, but extremely popular MMO, it’s gonna sell like hotcakes.
“I guarantee a lot of people are going to love the ‘classic’ style, but I also guarantee a lot of people are going to take one look and say “is that all? You’ve been in development with a ridiculous production budget for years and years and that’s what we get from one of the top studios in the world?””
Then they won’t buy it. I dunno what else there is to say other than that. Blizzard is betting on the fact that a lot of people do NOT want whatever fancy pants stuff other developers have been coming up with since StarCraft came out.
After all, it’s not like any of them set the world on fire, except for arguably Warcraft III (which WAS supposed to be radically innovative, but Blizzard pared back most of it between announcement and release).
But in any case I wouldn’t understate the value of nostalgia/same old if I were you. Capcom moved a ton of copies of Street Fighter IV by essentially saying this was the same game as Street Fighter II, and more noob friendly. Of course, it wasn’t (on both counts), but it drew back a lot of old fans.
@Arturo
I agree, I too worry that SC2 isn’t going to be “new” enough. I don’t mind if it doesn’t do squads, or cover or any of the other specific things that other RTSs have implemented recently, but I’d like it to have some “wow-neat” things of its own, and I’m not entirely convinced that’s going to be the case.
Actually I think TF2 is a pretty good comparison. Its mechanically very simple compared to other FPSs that came out since TFC, and even compared its TFC & QTF ancestors.
Valve took some of the core mechanics, discarded everything else and then polished the remainder like crazy (things get a bit messier when you add in the unlocks & class packs but still…) and the result was very playable. Maybe Blizz are taking SC2 down a similar route? I’m not entirely sure. Some of those unit abilities look really annoying, and there are far too many aoe nukes imho. Still the rolling “blink” micro on the hunters in battle report 3 looks like the awesomeness.