Rock, Paper, Shotgun

I half worry that my 1999 self would be disappointed. We’re living in the last of the great sci-fi-sounding years, and he’d have been hoping I’d be playing some kind of ludicrously intricate immersive-sim derivative. But if he asked, I’d be forced to confess that I’m playing Starcraft and Freespace. He’d have been disappointed. But fuck him. He always was a snot. I’m back with two of the best games of the late 90s. And what interests me is that in two games that were relatively contemporary with one another can walk such radically opposing paths and still end up in the same place…
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[As you're probably aware, the Starcraft 2 Beta is ticking along. We've played it enough so each of the RPSers have their own favourites. Or, at least the one they've gravitated towards so far. We thought we'd take it in turns giving a little picture portrait of each of faction, and why we've been drawn to them and how playing them is effecting us. First up is Quinns...]

I got my hands on the Starcraft 2 beta and I chose…
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Kieron: RIGHT! The Starcraft 2 beta is out. We’re all in, except John, who doesn’t want to be in. Is it the most anticipated RTS ever? Yeah, on the mass-cultural scale, probably. We’ll almost certainly be writing a load more down theline, but we thought it’ll be an idea to get those first impressions down. Does nothing compare to Starcraft 2?
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The StarCraft II beta is up and running, and keys were apparently distributed last night. I’ve got one, so I’ll pen some thoughts on it as soon as I get my arse handed to me by some RTS ninja on Battlenet we’re able. Right now the downloader looks very much the World Of Warcraft one, and I have to write something about Stalker.

A whole bunch of news has emerged from the nameless tendrils of the Acti-Blizz games leviathan, as the company makes its public financials call. The biggest of these regards World Of Warcraft, which has basically stopped growing. No! But yes! Because it’s the same as it was back in 2008. Arguably this has something to do with all the trouble the game has had in China, where it has been suspended for the best part of a year. Also interesting is this story, which says that only 30% of new WoW players ever get past level 10.

Blizz-o-News continues below.
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French games site NoFrag has some rumours about the next Blizzard MMO, which we know has been in development for some time. Blizzard have already said it will be quite different to World Of Warcraft, but could it be a science fiction MMOFPS with some kind of social element? That’s what NoFrag’s “secret sources” are saying. This is an interesting idea, and totally plausible. After all, people forget that WoW seemed like a risk for Blizzard when they did it originally. The MMOFPS area represents a similar risk: an area that has been dipped into, but never aced. Additionally, that social element. You could see how that might work: life in a science fiction society, where lovable robots and cute aliens can hang out and play Space Chess, but also go on shooty missions. It sounds like a pretty good bet, but the sad thing is we’re not going to hear any kind of confirmation from Blizzard for quite some time.

Roll your speculation, people.

I don’t entirely understand the word ‘jonesing.’ But I’m going to use it anyway. Like so: if you’re jonesing for a fix of Starcraft 2, this will surely make you adequately jonesinated. It’s a longish video showing off a slice of the game’s singleplayer story mode. Does this add purpose and drive to solo-play RTS, elevating it into grand, heroic warfare rather than dicking around with build queues and waypoints, or is it just a whole lot of scripting? Could it -gasp! – even be both?
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It’s the biggest news for kerzillions of people this month. The 3.3 patch for World of Warcraft has gone live. It’s enormous. I’ve actually cut and pasted the whole of the patchnotes below the break, just because it’s so amusingly hefty. It abstractly finishes the whole Wrath of the Lich king element. What’s interesting is that’s not entirely true. While the content’s there, it’s entirely all available. In Icecrown Citadel (outside Swindon) the gates to the next biffy bit opens in 28 days time, apparently. WoW.com calculates that means at the current rate, that Lich King won’t fall until April (Their guide to Patch 3.3 is a monster too). Anyway – the patch trailer and the patch notes follow. What does RPS’ WoW-faithful make of 3.3 life so far?
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So says Blizzard’s official tweeterer, anyway. Sounds as though it’s more about substituting the age-old system with a new one rather than the wholesale removal of it, but a follow-up fan interview (also containing a bunch of questions that very much go into the fine/finer/finest points of the game) with Jay Wilson sheds a little more light. “We’ve decided to remove the tree-type architecture and we are moving into a purely skill-based system. This new system is still in the development stages and if it does not work, we still have plenty of options to fall back on… It differs from the World of Warcraft/Diablo II type hierarchical styles and is more of a skill pool/path than a tree per se.” On top of last month’s reveal that each class would have its own resource rather than all using the rather generic ‘mana’ it’s increasingly clear this isn’t just Diablo II in 3D. It’s Diablo II in 3D with some changes. Yes!
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Today on Games I’m Not That Interested In But Kinda Wish I was, it’s Starcraft II. I’m still waiting for the reveal as to quite what it is about the singleplayer that necessitated trifurcating the game, because I’ve never been much of a one for multiplayer RTS. I can’t, however, imagine that Blizzard are unaware of this kind of mindset, especially in light of what their name means to that hefty slice of the WoW crowd who aren’t into the PvP or raid elements. They’re up to something, I don’t doubt – I just don’t know quite what yet. Hopefully it won’t just involve bombarding us with expensively-made cutscenes until we pass out from lore exhaustion. There’s a hint of what they’re up to in a new dev diary here, which includes the magic word ‘decisions’. Ooh! I like making those! Unless they’re about what to eat or whether I should put any clothes on, anyway. Also: new Zerg footage below. It’s SC2’s take on The Spy…

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