StarCraft II Preview

[Emabulator]

http://evavhost.com/i/news/StarCraft2Logo.jpg

For those of you that have not read much about the single-player portion of Blizzard Entertainment's upcoming strategy game, StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, Charles Onyett at IGN has posted a short preview (http://pc.ign.com/articles/105/1050034p1.html) of it after "toying around with the single-player setup."

The basic setup has you, the player, controlling Raynor in a manner similar to point-and-click adventure games. When on the bridge of the ship, he can interact with a terminal to get mission briefings and select where to go next. If you want to dig around for details, it's possible to click on the entryway to the room and travel to a few different places. These aren't all menus, either. The ship is fully detailed and filled with little moving bits and pieces, and when you move Raynor from the bridge to the armory to the lab and the cantina, it loads up new rooms filled with different characters and clickable parts of the environment.

[Anenome]

I think, if I were Blizzard, I'd be looking for more things to add the word 'craft' to, since every time they do it they make a few billion dollars >_>

We have 'War-' and we have 'Star-' what else works? Diablocraft? Zombies are popular later, Zombiecraft? Vampirecraft, Werewolfcraft >_>

[MasterEvilAce]

^ Troll


... 10char

[StGeorge]

This won't see the light of day until mid to late 2012 - Blizz & Kotick want to make sure it doesn't harm World of Warcraft and will only release this once WoW subs starts dropping.

[sgtslappy]

This won't see the light of day until mid to late 2012 - Blizz & Kotick want to make sure it doesn't harm World of Warcraft and will only release this once WoW subs starts dropping.

Clouded, your judgement is.

[Anenome]

^ Troll

o_O? did you think I was ragging on Starcraft? I wasn't.

[Anenome]

This won't see the light of day until mid to late 2012 - Blizz & Kotick want to make sure it doesn't harm World of Warcraft and will only release this once WoW subs starts dropping.

What do you mean 'once' lol. I'm sure subs have waned and waxed more than a few times now. Numbers fluctuate especially when they release new expansions.

No, I think they realize that Starcraft could be worth a few billion dollars if they play their cards right and make it the best it can be, and that's exactly what they intend to do. Same thing with the new Diablo. Blizz has learned that lesson well.

I'm not so sure the two overlap overly much anyway. I played WoW but never much liked Starcraft. Starcraft is much more like a continuation of what the original Warcraft was, that being an RTS. WoW probably caters more to the straight RPG crowd. It's RTS roots now well lost.

Besides, the game market isn't a zero-sum game. That is, if one game does well, it doesn't mean other games lose sales. Consumers are capable of buying more than one game.

[StGeorge]

What do you mean 'once' lol. I'm sure subs have waned and waxed more than a few times now. Numbers fluctuate especially when they release new expansions.

No, I think they realize that Starcraft could be worth a few billion dollars if they play their cards right and make it the best it can be, and that's exactly what they intend to do. Same thing with the new Diablo. Blizz has learned that lesson well.

I'm not so sure the two overlap overly much anyway. I played WoW but never much liked Starcraft. Starcraft is much more like a continuation of what the original Warcraft was, that being an RTS. WoW probably caters more to the straight RPG crowd. It's RTS roots now well lost.

Besides, the game market isn't a zero-sum game. That is, if one game does well, it doesn't mean other games lose sales. Consumers are capable of buying more than one game.

Starcraft 2 = 1 time sale, WoW = monthly sub. If they have to cancel Starcraft 2 to preserve WoW, they would do it in a heartbeat.

But there's no reason Starcraft 2 can't be released today (it's done according to Blizzard). They are holding it due to Battle.net, but why not let people work through single player and then move onto Battle.net when it's ready? Oh yeah because they plan on charging on Battle.net and you'll need to pay even for single player.

I guess they haven't gotten around to telling everyone yet.

[sgtslappy]

You really seem to hate Blizzard. They've said time and time again Battle.net will be free.

[sgtslappy]

You really seem to hate Blizzard. They've said time and time again Battle.net will be free.

Source (http://hellforge.gameriot.com/blogs/Hellforge/Battlenet-20-Confirmed-To-Be-Free)

[MasterEvilAce]

to be honest, I don't care WHAT devs say about their products, especially BEFORE they're released... things change.
So many companies have claimed "free forever!" just to start charging a year later. But, logically speaking, Battle.Net will have to be free. WoW is now on battle.net, and wow has a monthly fee already. How would they do that? That model wouldn't make any sense. However if they do move it to a WoW + SC and all you do is pay a battle.net fee, then that is logical.

[Ulysses]

I'm more excited about the other SC2 (Supreme Commander 2)

[VorianScript]

point and click adventure game built into scII? I just spent myself

[Anenome]

to be honest, I don't care WHAT devs say about their products, especially BEFORE they're released... things change.
So many companies have claimed "free forever!" just to start charging a year later. But, logically speaking, Battle.Net will have to be free. WoW is now on battle.net, and wow has a monthly fee already. How would they do that? That model wouldn't make any sense. However if they do move it to a WoW + SC and all you do is pay a battle.net fee, then that is logical.
- Hehe, just look at Duke Nukem Forever. That was gonna be out 'when it's done' and was going to be the 'best game ever.'

Someone should make a game or movie set in the challenging office environment of 3D Realms as they spent some 18 years making DKF :P You could play the human resources manager, and the whole thing would be like Dilbert, complete with all sorts of social challenges, periods of avoiding getting fired, fighting hackers trying to steal the game's source code, the fired employee who locked the whole company out of the servers, etc., etc. :P

[Qoz]

"But there's no reason Starcraft 2 can't be released today (it's done according to Blizzard). They are holding it due to Battle.net, but why not let people work through single player and then move onto Battle.net when it's ready? Oh yeah because they plan on charging on Battle.net and you'll need to pay even for single player." You obviously don't have a clue what you are talking about.

1. Starcraft is not done. They needed 6 months of beta and their intent was to begin this previous summer. That means the singleplayer had until late december to wrap up singlepayer.. so according to the old schedule it would be finished for December.

2. It doesn't make sense to release without the battle.net component! They consider the online experience to be very important, and releasing the online component later would seriously diminish the online players. After the single-player people should be able to jump online. So they would never split it up.

3. If singleplayer was released first, then it would be pirated ALOT. Having multiplayer is a huge incentive to buying Blizzard games, and when it's not there, then many people would "try it out" with a copy, and then never buy the game perhaps, once released. They could even be so unlucky that someone made a LAN hack before their b.net. 2.9 was released.

4. They are not charging for battle.net. Please get your facts straight. They have mentioned that would not guarantee it's all free in the future - and they pointed this to be only for non-gameplay un-important content - like avatar images. And this is not even IN Battle.Net 2.0, but just a possibility they would not rule out for the future.

5. It is just stupid to suggest, that they would not release until 2011 because of WoW!! Perhaps a delay of one month due to an expansion release, but nothing more.

[Orphiuchus]

So wait, I get to play Sam & max between rounds of Starcraft now?
Sweet!

[StGeorge]

Battle.net will be $5 a month and if you have a WoW account, they'll discount it down to $2 or so (which is a shadow way of increasing the WoW monthly fee, which Kotick has been wanting to do for a very long time). Why do you think they decided to make Battle.net mandatory for WoW when it's been completely unnecessary for the first five years? Once they got everyone on, then you don't have a choice anymore.

[brandonjclark]

Battle.net will be $5 a month and if you have a WoW account, they'll discount it down to $2 or so (which is a shadow way of increasing the WoW monthly fee, which Kotick has been wanting to do for a very long time). Why do you think they decided to make Battle.net mandatory for WoW when it's been completely unnecessary for the first five years? Once they got everyone on, then you don't have a choice anymore.

I don't know they'd charge WOW players an extra amount, in a forced move. That'd be just dick.

I hope I'm right....


*Oh, and consumers always have a choice: don't pay for it!

[saneman]

Battle.net will be $5 a month and if you have a WoW account, they'll discount it down to $2 or so (which is a shadow way of increasing the WoW monthly fee, which Kotick has been wanting to do for a very long time). Why do you think they decided to make Battle.net mandatory for WoW when it's been completely unnecessary for the first five years? Once they got everyone on, then you don't have a choice anymore.

Damnit, was it "make shit up" day again and nobody told me?

Or do you actually have some sources for this? If not, it's all so much wild/random/bitter speculation.

[The Ligand]

I'm not sure where the battle.net fee idea comes from, but it seems like it would take some pretty good maneuvering on Blizzard's part to make it fly. Not they aren't capable of that, but it wouldn't be easy. Maybe they could cast it in the guise of a 'premium' package of online services, or something nebulous like that.

Also, SCII is one of the games that I sang on (both for trailers and the actual game). Blizzard has done a lot of stuff with us (all the WoW expansions), MS too (Halo III), and other games like Assassin's Creed. I really get a funny kick out of hearing parts that I sang while playing a game. I was just reminded of that. Sorry to post off-topic.

[Anenome]

Damnit, was it "make shit up" day again and nobody told me?

Or do you actually have some sources for this? If not, it's all so much wild/random/bitter speculation.
Bahaha, good one :D Got a good laugh from that, and from his post about charge for Battlenet. That would be utterly ridiculous. There's no easier way to slaughter the WoW cash cow than screwing with the price system right now. Doing that would send shockwaves through the system. If Kotick wants to make more money off WoW the way to do it is to consolidate servers, and cut back on backend support and development. But, I don't think he's dumb enough or desperate enough to do that any time soon. I'm not even sure he has that kind of power over Blizzard as a group.