By Jim Rossignol on August 5th, 2009 at 9:47 pm.
Actually, it’s just the hey-where’s-that-beta of Starcraft II that has been delayed until 2010, but all this slippage is starting to make the field a bit sparse. Are all the games going to suddenly wake up next to each other in early 2010, thrash around in a panic, and delay things for another year-segment? Will Tiny Tim have anything to play come Christmas morn? The news of SC2′s vanishment into the future came (in)directly from Acti-Blizz biz-duke, Bobby Kotick he said: “As we prepare for next year, we have moved the expected release dates for two games, Activision Publishing’s Singularity and Blizzard Entertainment’s StarCraft II, into 2010.”
He probably knows what he’s doing, as the company brought in over a billion dollars last quarter, according to VG247′s report. There will be more through there later, if anyone cares about Acti-Blizz money stuff. Not me, I’m off to smoke some feathers and get high on loose jazz.
Update: Ooh, apparently this is tied to a Battle.net delay.
05/08/2009 at 21:49 Noc says:
Surely you mean “Feather some smokers and get loose on high jazz?”
In other news, First Quarter 2010 is being postponed till midyear.
05/08/2009 at 21:54 Jeremy says:
I’m going to have to buy a DS to kill some time until every PC stops being delayed. Hopefully at least a few of the goods will make it beyond the Fall/Winter hack n’ slash.
05/08/2009 at 21:56 Heliocentric says:
Christmas is nothing compared to spring 2010?
I think this game getting delayed is why clinton got to extridite those journalists. Think about it.
05/08/2009 at 21:58 seras says:
haha i’m guessing even Blizzard got scared by the pant-jizzing fest that is the Modern Warfare 2 hype.
05/08/2009 at 21:59 Kronyx says:
It’s always Starcraft 2 Starcraft 2… What about Diablo 3? We haven’t heard about that one for a long while.
05/08/2009 at 22:00 Heavy Weapons Guy says:
How long could it possibly take to remake an RTS from 1998?
I keed. I keed.
05/08/2009 at 22:00 Jim Rossignol says:
I am rather exaggerating, there’s still a fair end of year to be had. And my stack of games is already building for that week or so around Christmas I don’t spend reviewing terrible RTS games for money.
And presumably Diablo 3 is coming out in Q3 2017.
05/08/2009 at 22:02 Markoff Chaney says:
Awww. I was hoping to play Singularity this year. More time for Borderlands and (if redeemed) Dragon Age, I reckon. Diablo 3 will be coming out on December 21, 2012. I think the Mayans saw it coming.
05/08/2009 at 22:02 Anon says:
Starcraft 2: 2010 December
05/08/2009 at 22:03 Mo says:
More time for Borderlands. :)
05/08/2009 at 22:07 Jim Rossignol says:
I reckon Dragon Age will be fun, you’ll just be carefully steering your fantasy love machine away from the sexy-time sequences. (Yes, like bullet-time.)
05/08/2009 at 22:10 unclelou says:
And presumably Diablo 3 is coming out in Q3 2017.
Don’t say such things. Every other game more or less feels like a stopgap to me since D3 was announced.
05/08/2009 at 22:13 Serondal says:
They need to go ahead and just cancel SC2 it looks horrible. Maybe they can just give it a miss and go straight to StarCraft 3
05/08/2009 at 22:16 jonfitt says:
Dragonage: where women go weak at the knees for a trade paperback.
05/08/2009 at 22:25 Kthulhu says:
This is why I ignore press releases about Blizzard games, expansions, or patches that don’t confirm it’s coming out tomorrow. They make quality games but they are awful about pushing back dates or announcing stuff then going AWOL for a year before mentioning it again. Annoying.
05/08/2009 at 22:25 Serondal says:
Dragonage: Where awesome went to die.
05/08/2009 at 22:25 GuiSim says:
NOooooooooooooooooooooooo :(
I guess i’ll have to buy L4D2 now .. :(
05/08/2009 at 22:25 Serondal says:
I don’t even know what that meant, I’m an extremely tired American it is best just to ignore me.
05/08/2009 at 22:31 DigitalSignalX says:
I’m looking forward to SC2, I really am, but the ire… the feeling of being taken advantage of by releasing it in 3 parts stretched over years still rubs me wrong.
05/08/2009 at 22:35 Tei says:
I feel a disturbance in the force, as is millions of koreans cry in terror … then …silence.
05/08/2009 at 22:36 Markoff Chaney says:
I don’t mind the sexy time, really. Also, cogitating on something I read in the US PC Gamer, it made me think a bit. Maybe the game is really that hard core and suits are scared of that so they try to lowest common denominator it up with that Marilyn Manson shtick. Rationalization or Wishful thinking? :)
05/08/2009 at 22:37 Mo says:
Aren’t all Blizzard games released like that anyway? I mean, everyone expects Blizz to release expansion packs for their games, right? They’re just announcing the expansions ahead of time.
05/08/2009 at 22:40 Xercies says:
Well i’ll be waiting on Dragon Age, maybe I’ll be wrong but there current Advertising is absolutly horrible so only reviews saying tis an awesome RPG will save it now.
You would think The November Rush looks quiet with all this 2010 rushing but actually looking at the list of major games coming out in that time its still to huge.
I actually think its a good thing, and they should put games more in the January to June time, and maybe more in the June To September time. Not have all these games Packed in one.
But Gamers are never happy either way…
05/08/2009 at 22:45 Rei Onryou says:
“Delayed to Spring 2010″ is the new must-have-feature?
05/08/2009 at 23:02 Dean says:
Hmm, if it’s a BattleNet delay then presumable the bulk of the SC2 team are still working on schedule for the expansions, so maybe we’ll see the second two parts come out quicker. We can hope.
05/08/2009 at 23:07 Railick says:
@Heavy Weapons Guy – It’s the same thing where suddenly we don’t have the technology to go to the moon any more even though we already did it (Yah right!!!) All the people that made starcraft and old and dead and no longer around to work on the project :P
I love RTS games but I couldn’t be any less excited about this game, it looks God awful like Blizzard totally missed Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 2 ect and are making a sequel as if no other RTS was released in between now and WC 3 . I hope I’m wrong but based on the videos and pictures I’ve seen it really just looks like Starcraft with a bit of crappy 3d thrown in.
Like the above comment about Bill Clinton :P Obviously he worked out some sort of deal with North Korea to stall SC2 in order to deliver an unbearable jab of pain to all South Koreans every where.
05/08/2009 at 23:16 Vinraith says:
I’m shocked, SHOCKED. Well, not that shocked.
05/08/2009 at 23:18 Flappybat says:
I think a summary of what is very likely to come out in the rest of the year would be good as I’ve lost track of what is actually coming out.
05/08/2009 at 23:46 Pijama says:
It’s relatively easy to get one billion in profit when you having fucking World of Warcraft at your side.
Blizzard is worth more than half of Activision. Probably the folks at Blizz said “hey we need more time for this” and well… you are not going to disappoint your sugar daddy right? :D
05/08/2009 at 23:47 Black Mamba says:
From the follow up on VG247 it sounds like old Bobby has ideas about Battle.net being a competitor to Xbox Live!
Looks like Battle.net will be making its way into other Activision games.
05/08/2009 at 23:48 A-Scale says:
Excellent title. I lolled in the most literal sense possible.
Also, note from the other day: whoever posted that Rumble Strips video: thank you! I absolutely loved it. Listened to it 20+ times on repeat. I will be watching that band very closely.
05/08/2009 at 23:57 Persus-9 says:
@ Vinraith: Professor that’s Fry’s line!
@Flappybat: Eurogamer keep lists of these things for easy reference here.
06/08/2009 at 00:13 ChampionHyena says:
BLIZZARD DELAYED A VIDEO GAME!?
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
That said, I’m cautiously optimistic, but I think Railick might be right. I have no doubt that Blizzard will craft an appropriately epic and engrossing single-player campaign for us, but I’m mortified that the multiplayer–and, indeed, the core gameplay concepts–have not evolved since 1999. At the risk of sounding like (sounding like? Being) a fanboy, I think it’s a bad move to pretend that Relic and Best Way and all the paradigm-warping chappies haven’t changed the landscape of the modern FPS just a little bit.
I mean… building thousands of worker units? Mining shiny crystalline minerals the whole game through? Churning out vast multitudes of fragile little units, one by one by one by one ad infinitum? There’s a reason I don’t play C&C games anymore.
I have plenty of faith in Blizzard. I’m sure the game will be rock solid and finely polished. But at the end of the day… how interesting is a solid, polished rock?
Okay, I think I butchered that metaphor a bit.
06/08/2009 at 00:13 ChampionHyena says:
Side note: What the eff happened to my avatar?
06/08/2009 at 00:19 ChampionHyena says:
Also, forget I said “modern FPS” and that instead I said “modern RTS.”
WHERE IN THE GOOD GODDAMN IS MY EDIT FUNCTION
NOW EVERYONE WILL KNOW THAT MY COGNITIVE FACULTIES ARE UTTERLY RETARDED
I BLAME YOU, JIM ROSSIGNOL
I BLAME YOUUUUUUU
06/08/2009 at 00:21 coupsan says:
I am surprised but not really.
06/08/2009 at 00:39 MartinX says:
It’s Blizzard lol. They are like 3DRealms if 3DRealms shipped games.
Can you really be shocked or surprised about changes to the release date of a game that never actually had a release date?
My fear is that next time Activision will say “We don’t care if it’s finished, you have to ship by the end of the quarter to keep the shareholders happy”, and that’ll pretty much be the end of that.
06/08/2009 at 00:46 Forscythe says:
Now we can thank battle.net not just for the lack of LAN play in SC2, but also for a 6 month delay in the game (note that the release date is now H1 2010, not Q1). How awesome is it going to be to be worth all this?
I suppose every game publisher has to have their own incompatible “online destination platform” these days, though. I know I don’t feel comfortable playing any game without being logged in to steam, impulse, Games for windows Live, battle.net, and of course the Rockstar social club!
06/08/2009 at 01:01 Azradesh says:
Can I please just have the Starcraft 2 single player campaign, I don’t give a rats arse about the multiplayer side.
Sigh
06/08/2009 at 01:03 JSutcliffe says:
“2009 Delayed to 2010″ is the perfect summation of all this nonsense. Whichever one of you thought it up needs a pat on the back.
I don’t especially mind the delays — there are few games in there I care about (maybe Mafia II) and I have a bit of a backlog to get through, but I’m always amused by the companies claiming that their delays are to make sure their products don’t get lost in the Great Game Deluge Of 2009.
06/08/2009 at 01:48 ids says:
Oh well it blizzard. I am honestly looking forward to dragon age and aion.
06/08/2009 at 01:54 Jayt says:
SHOCK HORROR…
:>
06/08/2009 at 01:55 Jazmeister says:
Number 1. That’s terror.
06/08/2009 at 02:05 Psychopomp says:
Number 2
That’s terror.
06/08/2009 at 02:37 The Unshaven says:
I upset someone the other day:
“No, SC2 is coming out in 2009!”
“They’re having a six month beta. Are there six months LEFT in 2009?”
“…..But!”
Yeah. Plus, as many have said, this is Blizzard. I got all of my spazzing about delays done for SC1. Now I’m older and mellower.
Or something.
- The Unshaven
06/08/2009 at 04:03 one f jef says:
Wow, blizzard must have found an extra pile of cocaine they forgot about, so now they can delay copy-pasting one of their only 3 rehashed games for the bazillionth time. Poor us, who are we going to throw money at for the same crap now? Starbucks?
06/08/2009 at 04:23 Thants says:
Two other RTS games had a cover system, Starcraft 2 is worthless now! (Am I doing it right?)
06/08/2009 at 04:31 Nerd Rage says:
This is just Blizzard being Blizzard. They’re probably the only company that doesn’t have to be concerned about Modern Warfare 2, you know, since Activision is publishing it, but also because they seem to be pretty much bulletproof (no pun intended, but groan if you like). I’m under the belief that Blizzard could shit in a box, stamp their logo on the side, and it would still sell 5 million units in Korea.
06/08/2009 at 04:37 Vinraith says:
@Thants
Yup, that’s apparently the idea. If I’d realized that I’d have been complaining that Close Combat invalidated every RTS without a cover system and soldier psychology, which is all of them, since its release. Shit, now what am I going to play?
06/08/2009 at 05:14 sigma83 says:
one f jef: Away with you and your onerous platitudes. Let us in here tinker with our army men.
Re: StarCraft II As a young person whose introduction to the space marine concept was in reverse order i.e. StarCraft -> 40k -> Aliens, puts into perspective the fact that the first thing I said when watching a Starcraft 2 gameplay video was ‘Hmm… the marines look and sound shooty enough. I think I’ll get this game.’
MARIIIIINES! AH-TTAAAAAAAAACCK
*ratatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatatat*
For many a moon the only units I ever produced from every starcraft skirmish were marines, medics, and battlecruisers, because the only thing nearly as cool as a space marine is a capital ship.
06/08/2009 at 05:16 ChampionHyena says:
Whoo, you two wacky kids sure did sock it to all those people that mentioned cover systems.
06/08/2009 at 05:17 sigma83 says:
Oh! and when one blizzard dev explained that the Terrans were being reconceptualized (dammit little red jaggy line, that is too a word!) to becoming ‘air cavalry’, I near wet myself in glee because the only thing cooler than capital ships are, of course, dropships.
06/08/2009 at 05:34 merc says:
The main problem with Starcraft 2 for me is that Starcraft 1 already did that style of RTS perfectly, so why do I need Starcraft 2 when I have Starcraft 1?
06/08/2009 at 05:45 Vinraith says:
@merc
Because you’d like to play in a remotely modern resolution? Because SC1′s interface is unplayably clunky by modern standards? Don’t get me wrong, if SC2 is just a revamp of SC1 I’ll pick it up at bargain bin prices, but it’d be worth $10 just to have SC1 with a decent resolution, widescreen support, and a revamped interface.
06/08/2009 at 06:24 Thants says:
ChampionHyena: Well, there was talk about how CoH and DoW2 Changed Everything. I just picked an example of something they did. I dunno, Starcraft is still fun, I don’t see why every RTS has to be CoH.
I am actually concerned that the competitive players will force Blizzard not to change things too much.
06/08/2009 at 06:42 ChampionHyena says:
Every RTS needn’t be CoH, but is it too much to ask that we, the Starcraft-consuming public (we are consuming it, right? Is anyone here actually resisting?) get a little bit of innovation?
Obviously I haven’t played the game. I’ve just watched the trailers and presentation videos and battle reports and what I’m seeing is… well, more akin to an expansion pack than anything. “Look! We have jump infantry and walkers and buildings can sink into the ground now, wheeeee!” Doesn’t exactly light my fire, I’m sayin’.
The competitive community had given me pause, too. If there’s anyone who’s pushing for the game not to change whatsoever, it’s the folks that make their living off of playing the damn game. I dunno. I mean, we got from TFC to TF2, right? Heck, even from Warcraft II to Warcraft III. Gimme a new wrinkle, please. Then I’ll get really excited.
06/08/2009 at 07:19 Vinraith says:
@ChampionHyena
I don’t think anyone here is saying they shouldn’t innovate. In fact, like Thants, I’m a bit concerned that the South Korean competitive circuit will result in NO innovation. If that happens, as I said, it’s a bargain bin title to my thinking.
I’m not a CoH fan, myself, so when it’s held up as an example my reaction is to say “innovate, but not necessarily in that direction.” Not to be argumentative, but I don’t really consider most of the mechanics in CoH innovative anyway, they’re just components carried over from hardcore tactical games (the Combat Missions and Close Combats of the world) and put in a more commercial RTS context. I don’t enjoy that particular hybridization, you do, that’s perfectly fine. I’d rather they didn’t move Starcraft in that direction, I get the sense you’d like them to do exactly that.
06/08/2009 at 07:38 ChampionHyena says:
A tactical/RTS hybrid may not even be a good fit for Starcraft. I’m not saying I need it to go in any particular direction. What I want, really, is for it to come up with some inventive notions of its own. What should they be, specifically? I have no idea. The idea here is that they should throw us something new and surprising and intuitive. I don’t think Blizzard’s incapable of that.
Meanwhile, there’s a reason I play the tactical style RTSes anymore. The old standby–which is to say, the sort of RTS you’ve been able to find anywhere since the first C&C–bores the hell out of me. I do not want a rigidly defined sequence of mathematically ideal building queues and upgrades. I do not want my grand, vast strategy to result in nothing more than sneaking into a base and killing all the builder units. I do not want hordes of harvesters endlessly scuttling back and forth between resource points while I watch my stockpiles uptick until I can queue the next unit. I do not want there to be units that most players consider completely obsolete. I do not want to juggle ten different control groups of bumbling, tiny, individual soldiers. I do not want to spend all of the early game kiting scout units back and forth across the map. I do not want my utter failure to be decided before the match even starts. I do not want to be Zerg rushed. This is not fun for me.
Do I want CoH in space? No. I’ve got Dawn of War, and that makes me happy. What I want Starcraft II to do is find its own reason to shine and–ideally–drop the utterly unnecessary trappings of the bog-standard RTS just enough that losing a match is an interesting learning experience instead of a cavalcade of shame and abject uninformed failure.
06/08/2009 at 07:42 sigma83 says:
To my mind, there are 3 kinds of RTS currently popular:
- The C&C style based building resource gathering type thing, e.g. C&C, obv, StarCraft. I figure the draw here is that you have complete control over your overall ‘Strategy’ from supply chain to method of force (read, ordnance) projection. Relatively small emphasis of in combat tactics (beyond micro)
- The Real Time Tactic. World in Conflict, Ground Control. No resource management, purely unit management, and the various tactics you can array with your unit types and special abilities. My favorite type of RTS.
- The Hybrid. Company of Heroes, Dawn of War. In the middle, in that base building still plays a role but more emphasis is given to in-combat tactics.
Mind, This is just something I crapped off the top of my head but I think that Starcraft II is very much wanting to jump to the top of ‘A’ camp and stay there, rather than overlapping into the other 2 places.
06/08/2009 at 07:43 woppin says:
Starcraft 2 is being designed to take over the e-sport market from original SC. You can’t change much of the formula and retain the immaculate balance they’ve been fine tuning for the last 10 years. Relic overhauled things with DoW2 and it’s a balancing nightmare and a mess because of it.
If you’re not already committed to buying SC now, I daresay the multiplayer aspect of the game is not designed with you in mind. The single player campaign on the other hand looks to be a revamp of the WC3 formula with some additional jazz (maintaining your own crew etc.) and should be a blast.
So to say Blizzard haven’t learnt from the competition is a little off, SC2 is almost identical to DoW2 in the way it separates single and multiplayer as completely different games with different target demographics.
06/08/2009 at 07:46 sigma83 says:
What woppin said.
I’m not a fan of the type of RTS that starcraft is in a multiplayer setting but by god do I want to lay hands on that Terran campaign.
06/08/2009 at 07:46 sigma83 says:
…especially if they have any female characters <..>
06/08/2009 at 07:50 Thants says:
What would really be great is a Rise of Nations 2. Man, Rise of Nations was great.
06/08/2009 at 08:03 sigma83 says:
Rise of Legends doesn’t count?
06/08/2009 at 08:05 Vinraith says:
@Thants
You shouldn’t say things like that, I get all excited and then I realize there’s virtually no chance.
And no sigma, Rise of Legends doesn’t remotely count. It was an alright game on its own, but it bore only a passing resemblance to the original Rise of Nations. Linear campaigns (in fact if not in theory), few factions, pre-built cities, none of these would have any place in a real RoN follow-up.
06/08/2009 at 08:10 woppin says:
RE: ChampionHyena
Most of the mechanics you don’t like are in DoW2 anyway…
- Build sequence is per map and per matchup, so at least it’s more varied than other RTS games. You don’t build ranged against SM though…cookie cutter builds are still dominant
- Your grand vast strategy is now to go kill all their power gens and decap rec points
- Obsolete units…kommandos? HDB? ASM?
- Early game kiting…I recommend you stay away from Space Marines and Eldar then…and don’t build any tanks.
- The matchups aren’t even at the moment, especially given the difference between 1v1 and 3v3. Good luck beating Ork as SM 1v1.
I prefer DoW2 and the other Relic games to the Blizzard ones any day, but if you play online most of the annoyances are the same.
06/08/2009 at 08:13 sigma83 says:
oh yes, the prebuilt city things.
I was always crippled in both RoN and RoL by stopping whenever I got musketmen. I’d use them extensively and often exclusively, leading to my ultimate (but very cool) downfall
06/08/2009 at 08:28 Zaphid says:
Mentioning Starcraft here is like mentioning Halo on the escapist forums.
Starcraft has more in common with AoE than with C&C, especially because of the way the building and researching works. Also complaining that they are nothing compared to DoW2 is wrong, my guess is that SC has way more players now, 10 years after release than DoW2 has, shiny graphics aren’t everything. There are cookie cutter builds in SC, however there are also builds that are direct counters to them. You can play a 5 minute game as well as half an hour epic battle depending on your build.
06/08/2009 at 08:30 alset says:
Relic fanboys make me laugh bashing blizzard for its “rehashes”, as if Relic have made any original games except Homeworld.
I’m on the side of not changing what isn’t broken, and SC is still the pinnacle in balance in RTS. And CoH isn’t better than SC it’s just different. If you try to compare them then I bring Men of War to the table which blows CoH out of the water in every way.
06/08/2009 at 08:35 Anthony Damiani says:
You know, I’m comfortable with SC2 being a little bit retro.
I don’t care for the consolified direction RTS has been heading in. Even though I like Demigod and even DoW2, but it’s a different genre of game. I didn’t care for World in Conflict, Universe at War, Supreme Commander or C&C/Red Alert III– but they’re further examples of the same sort of a trend towards a more action-style, less strategic game. If SC2 manages to bring some of that back with a more modern aesthetic, I’ll be reasonably satisfied.
What I *am* disappointed by is that absolutely nobody’s pushing back on the heavy-duty tactical side of things. Company of Heroes was IT, and there’s been virtually no endeavor to further the form in that direction, even in its own latest expansion. It’s probably not the space SCII needs to occupy, but I wish someone would.
06/08/2009 at 08:43 Tei says:
@alset: Your comment is strange. Relic has moved RTS’s forward with games like Homeworld and Company of Heroes. These two games are more than innovative, are a giant step forward to the genre. Maybe the problem is that other game studios persist to use old models, withouth much enhancements ( C&C 3 and Starcraft 2 ).
The original Starcraft was limited to a number of units in groups. Thats a artificial limit, probably caused by poor programming. Relic and this guys are not even on the same league of programming.
What has made Starcraft better is the lore, and a fit for multiplayer, and some “grindi-ability” that has made it popular in Korea. Command & Conquer has shot his own foot. Dune heas shot his own foot ( EA killed Westwood). So this emptyness has help maybe too much Starcraft.
I don’t care if Starcraft is a national sport in Korea. Is not that a good games, and I think games like Homeworld are much much more interesting. And games like Company of Heroes much more innovative.
Blind fanboyism spawn uselss discussions. Please save your love for Starcraft for paying 200$ for wen all the “episodes” release.
06/08/2009 at 08:47 woppin says:
How you can call Supreme Commander less strategic and more action-style than Starcraft boggles the mind.
Lump the Relic games, the Blizzard ones and the CNC series in that category, but SupCom wasn’t even remotely as fast as those games, despite the micro it required for things like mantis dancing etc.
06/08/2009 at 09:03 sigma83 says:
Can we have a moratorium on the word ‘fanboy’ please? For here, for now, for ever?
06/08/2009 at 09:04 woppin says:
@Tei: I don’t think it’s fair to diss the Blizzard programmers. They’re probably among the best in the world.
@alset: Men of War has absolutely no concept of balance. As a multiplayer RTS it fails horribly. In the balance department Blizzard has everyone beaten, and that’s why their games still have active online communities years after release. Nobody will be playing Men of War online in 12 months, that’s a near-certainty.
Relic are making baby steps towards balance with DoW2, having completely ruined both CoH and DoW balance wise with expansion packs. To say they aren’t innovative ignores them effectively creating their own RTS sub-genre based around cover and map control instead of unit numbers and massing.
06/08/2009 at 09:07 alset says:
Tei:
But what do you mean “a giant step forward in the genre”? I would attribute that to Half-Life or Baldur’s Gate, but who or what followed these games you mentioned? It is yet to be decided this is the direction RTS should go. What games incorporated that formula except for Relic sequels and its million of expansions(hint hint)
My opinion is these games showed how things can be done differently but not objectively better. For the record I don’t care about the koreans playing SC and I’m a bit dissappointed multiplayer for 2 is catered to them. I only play it with friends and I’m having a blast after all these years at lanpartys.
06/08/2009 at 09:25 Tei says:
@alset: Market success is a different thing. And I understand what you are tryiing to say, and you have a point, but I don’t like where you are going. And to add to that, I want games to become better, not more popular.
06/08/2009 at 09:46 Rinox says:
I’m not complaining. Less games in the Christmas frenzy means more big games spread around the year. And sure, you could just buy them cheaper afterwards if they all came out at the same time, but that’d deny you the thrill of buying that hot new game at the store on release date. Assuming you’re not completely devoted to digital distrubution.
06/08/2009 at 09:47 Kester says:
The delay due to Battle.net seems to indicate that Blizzard might be the only company that learned from Valve’s Steam-necessary Half-Life 2 release: if you want to successfully launch a digital platform, make it part of a much A++ release. (Admittedly, having an A++ release is probably half the battle…)
06/08/2009 at 10:38 pkt-zer0 says:
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: If Starcraft 2 sucks for not innovating, then so does Team Fortress 2.
06/08/2009 at 12:41 Tworak says:
noooooooo yaaaaaay mixed emotions
least I get aion soon
06/08/2009 at 13:16 Technology Slice says:
I don’t think starcraft 2 is ever going to be released. They keep pushing back the release date.
06/08/2009 at 14:00 Xocrates says:
@Technology Slice: not been following Blizzard for long, have you? When the year started I was already doubtful that SC2 would be released this year.
Regarding innovation: Blizzard was never innovative, they were just ever really good at what they do. At most they popularized a particular game style.
There are two criticisms aimed at blizzard recently, and SC2 in particular, that I can’t understand, both already meantioned here:
1) complaining about SC2 being 3 games, despite the fact that what Relic did with DoW was similar if not worse.
2) Accusing Blizzard of milking their franchises, despite the fact that in 20 years their largest series has 4 games (plus an equal number of expansions across all titles), while their other two series are getting a sequel over a decade after the previous title, with one of those being the FIRST sequel in a series.
Do people only really hate Blizzard because they produce (deservedly) highly lucrative games?
06/08/2009 at 14:05 Tei says:
@pkt-zer0: TF2 has this new rendeing style. It make cell shading (like Champion Online) looks like garbage. It has also a original re-start of the TeamFortress serie. It gives personality to the classes in a very interesting way.
06/08/2009 at 14:40 Kester says:
@Xocrates: Noone hated Blizzard until WoW. Now everyone seems to hate them. I don’t know if it’s previous fans upset that WoW has taken precedence over other games, or people who just hate WoW, or people who are just jealous that Blizzard now have giant piles of money, but that’s definitely when it started.
06/08/2009 at 15:13 pkt-zer0 says:
@Tei: Heh, just imagine the rage if SC2 had TF2-style art design. Anyway, those are still just improvements to the interface. Strategic meta-game (the Commander class) and vehicular combat, other ways in which Battlefield/etc. “advanced” the genre are completely absent. Same goes for SC2.
06/08/2009 at 15:17 goodgimp says:
No, there was quite a bit of Blizzard hate before WoW. Anyone that successful / popular often generates a fair amount of hate from those who haven’t drank the koolaid.
06/08/2009 at 15:48 Psychopomp says:
“I love RTS games but I couldn’t be any less excited about this game, it looks God awful like Blizzard totally missed Company of Heroes and Dawn of War 2 ect and are making a sequel as if no other RTS was released in between now and WC 3 .”
DISCLAIMER:I adore Dawn of War 2
Now, there’s something you’re all forget. Many, many of us *want* this type of gameplay from Starcraft. *It’s Starcraft,* this is what it does, and we don’t want anything else from it.
Why is it we’ll praise one thing for hearkening back to the old days, and then we’ll demonize the next?
06/08/2009 at 15:52 Psychopomp says:
“The original Starcraft was limited to a number of units in groups. Thats a artificial limit, probably caused by poor programming.”
Actually, no. It was put in in order to help discourage the “mass’n'attack,” time of playstyle.
06/08/2009 at 16:12 Berzee says:
I never played SC because we bought it when I was just a young lad, and the space marine swore at things, so we returned it (remember when you could return PC games? so awesome).
I probably won’t buy this one either, being not so much into the setting. AoE series for me! Swords and castles pleaze!
06/08/2009 at 17:16 Jeremy says:
Innovation is always tricky, because it can quickly become an old hat that nobody wants to wear anymore. If every RTS came out with exactly the same cover system and capture mechanic, then it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting to me. I rather enjoy the precision of Starcraft (even for single player) and am glad they decided to keep the same formula for the sequel. Keep in mind, Blizzard is not made of fools, do you doubt that they didn’t consider assimilating certain aspects of Relic’s RTS mechanics into their own game? They’re like the Borg of game design.
06/08/2009 at 18:31 Tei says:
@Jeremy: “do you doubt that they didn’t consider assimilating certain aspects of Relic’s RTS mechanics into their own game?” , and maybe want, but can’t, because also want to make a “faithfull” version for e-sport gamers. If you add cover, ala in Company of Heroes. Then the faifhfull followers will get angry, and probably the e-sport guys too.
06/08/2009 at 18:50 Railick says:
That doesn’t mean they couldn’t take some inspiration from these game and put their own spin on it instead of just pretty much the exact same game they already did with updatd graphics and new units.
Sure we havn’t really seen the final game yet but from the way it looks now it seems like it is a blast from the past. I could be wrong, infact I HOPE I’m wrong, I’d really LOVE to enjoy Starcraft 2 as much as I did Starcraft.
06/08/2009 at 19:12 Psychopomp says:
Blizzard seems to be caught between two groups, at the moment
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyChangedItNowItSucks
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ptitlezx89c5u5txaj
Oh hey, look. It’s even listed on both pages.
06/08/2009 at 19:16 Nalano says:
@ goodgimp
“No, there was quite a bit of Blizzard hate before WoW.”
Well, there was quite a lot of hate for the matching tool they used, but as game designers not quite so much.
I know there’s always demand for the same exact game but better graphics (Fallout, Interstate 76, anything from the Bullfrog catalog >.>) but, like previously stated, market success and design innovation are not one and the same.
06/08/2009 at 19:32 Vinraith says:
IIRC Blizzard hate really got rolling with Warcraft 3. A LOT of folks did not enjoy the RPG aspects of that game.
06/08/2009 at 19:37 Anthony Damiani says:
[quote]How you can call Supreme Commander less strategic and more action-style than Starcraft boggles the mind.[/quote]
From my recollections, I regarded it as an unsophisticated spammer, in the same category as the later C&C games or Universe at War. No cover, no flanking, no suppression, no area control, simplistic resource management, poorly differentiated sides, lousy unit design on an artistic and gameplay level, wide-open uninteresting maps. It wasn’t fast, but it felt seriously dumbed-down.
But, then, I should confess that my critique is hardly nuanced; that game holds the distinction of the shortest time between install and uninstall on my machine.
06/08/2009 at 19:46 Nalano says:
@ Vinraith
“IIRC Blizzard hate really got rolling with Warcraft 3. A LOT of folks did not enjoy the RPG aspects of that game.”
And this is why hate for WoW players probably eclipses hate for Blizzard itself.
“Change? NOT GOOD. HATE CHANGE. CHANGE BAD.”
06/08/2009 at 19:54 Vinraith says:
@Nalano
I can only speak for myself, but my distaste for WoW is largely a product of the fact that, being so massively successful, it’s strongly influencing even non-MMO RPG games with it’s ideas. Since there are many aspects of WoW’s design I ardently dislike, I find this trend distressing.
That said, I was never on the “I hate Blizzard” train and, even in the wake of WoW, I’m still not. I’ve had too much fun with too many of their games to hold one industry changing train wreck (from my perspective) against them, and I look forward to both SC2 and Diablo 3 with high expectations.
06/08/2009 at 20:01 Psychopomp says:
@Nalano
We’re not all like that, the people that are, are just another very vocal minority.
On another, tenuously related note, I hate mana systems. With a passion. In anything. I also hate the vancian system. Melee classes don’t have melee juice, why should casters have to deal with a finite resource? It’s a bad idea, and I’ll never understand how it became so widespread.
06/08/2009 at 20:02 Nalano says:
@Vinraith
I’m not implying your opinion either way. I was just saying that change of any sort seems to hurts a lot of people’s sense of security (complacency?) in their manner of play.
Now that you mention it, tho, I’m hard to pinpoint exactly how an MMO could influence non-MMO RPGs, considering that the main “story” of an MMO is static.
06/08/2009 at 20:05 Nalano says:
@Psychopomp
‘Course not. I threw 2.5 years down the WoW rabbit hole, too. But this is the internet. What have we to discuss but the braying of the vocal minority?
06/08/2009 at 20:21 Railick says:
@Psychopomp – I believe the who Mana system was created to allow Wizards and spell users to have extremly powerful spells and abilities but limit their usage to even them up with warriors.
06/08/2009 at 20:28 Railick says:
I’ll be honest, I’m not closed minded or anything and I’m going to buy SC 2 even if I don’t think I’ll like it. If it captures what was good about SC then I supose I’ll probably end up liking it one way or another.
06/08/2009 at 20:37 Tei says:
I hope SC2 is good. After all the talk, I am just another gamer and get incredible good hours from good games :-)
06/08/2009 at 20:38 Nalano says:
@Railick
It wouldn’t matter if you liked it or disliked it, you already bought it.
06/08/2009 at 21:58 Funky Badger says:
+1 for Company of Heroes not being very good/interesting. Hope Starcraft 2 isn’t like that.
06/08/2009 at 22:06 Railick says:
It wouldn’t matter to you or to Blizzard but it would matter to me ;P It wouldn’t be the first game I’d purchased that I ended up not liking, not by a long shot.
06/08/2009 at 23:28 D says:
-1 For Company of Heroes not being good.
HA!
07/08/2009 at 00:13 Psychopomp says:
@Railick
That’s another thing. In the cases where it’s used like that, casters go from useless, to absolutely godlike, whilst melee classes start at useful, and end up around “meh.”
+1 for Company of Heroes being good, BTW