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That makes sense and would probably add to the game, but it's not really anything revolutionary.

Does it need to be?

We're getting intot that mindset again of "I don't want that car unless someone has gone to the trouble of inventing a new wheel for it"

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I'm really excited about the announcement by Blizzard that this game would do innovative things with altitude and fog-of-war. This means that ground units will only reveal the areas of the map on the same level of ground as they are. That would be incredible. They can do so much.

I'm perfectly happy playing a regular old RTS if it's the quality that Starcraft is/was. Thing is, if you're promising innovation, deliver on it.

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Am I the only one thinking that what Blizzard is doing right now with Starcraft 2 is engineering a game that is a 100% responding to customer needs? To me, they are crafting a product the way any other software company outside of the game industry would : they are matching the demand without going further than needed. And I don't blame them for it.

Frankly, I feel that if Blizzard wanted to innovate and push the envelope in the RTS genre, they wouldn't do it through a Starcraft sequel, they would create a new IP. Because here's the thing : Starcraft(+Broodwar) is one of the few games consider to be un-aging classics and more importantly, it is still massively played at pro level. Only games like Civilization or Quake III can pretend to have such status. It would be utterly stupid for Blizzard to mess up such status by trying to fix what's already working.

So Starcraft 2 is 100% in known territory... and I challenge anyone who's seen the gameplay video to tell me they hadn't forgotten Starcraft 1 ever existed before Starcraft 2 :the flow, the art (even the 2D-style blending of different tiles on the terrain),the gameplay everything is so in line with Starcraft that at the end of the video I, for one, forgot that the novelties weren't there to begin with.

Of course, they say they are using new technologies, but I don't believe it will change the gameplay, because there isn't any upside in trying to do so. Even the 3D animation tries to emulate the shaky feeling given by the ones in Starcraft.

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Am I the only one thinking that what Blizzard is doing right now with Starcraft 2 is engineering a game that is a 100% responding to customer needs? To me, they are crafting a product the way any other software company outside of the game industry would : they are matching the demand without going further than needed.

Should games really be compared with software tools, though? Aren't they more akin to movies or novels in that they are entertainment (and perhaps art), and therefore catering to customers' desires is not what's best?

Talking about iterating games like it's the next version of Word seems utterly alien and, to some extent, abhorrent, personally.

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Let's be serious for a second : I'd say 80% of games on the market are clones,'me-too' and followers. Games targeting a specific audience already exist. Most of them suck or are dull because their 'creators' couldn't really get what the consumers appreciated in the games whose success they try to emulate. These games could be good ones, enjoyable ones, so I wish most of these would follow the general software development scheme, like Blizzard seems to be doing; and yield better result thanks to that.

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First of all, I think we ALL saw this coming.

Looks a lot like Starcraft 1.5 in 3D with Kerrigan once again pissing everyone off. God I hope she gets killed, found her interesting at first then just annoying by the end of Brood Wars. I also hate how her character was almost reused in Wc3 in the form of Arthas . All in all though ,Blizzard are second to none in RTSs, they will balance it out beautifully, the singleplayer campaign will be pretty good, the maps diverse and the game itself well styled . Even if none of these things are done right, they will still make tons of money, and can then go back to printing even more ludicrous amounts with WoW.

TBH.I would have liked to try a Starcraft MMO, maybe not play one for a long period of time tho.

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Getting a bit nerdy here; I thought a lot of the most promising characters grew a bit meh during Brood War. Kerrigan was palatable, but what did they do to poor Arcturus Mengsk? He became a caricature, a bit of a little Hitler/Gargamel hybrid. Very disappointing. Here's hoping these characters return to quality again.

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Getting a bit nerdy here; I thought a lot of the most promising characters grew a bit meh during Brood War. Kerrigan was palatable, but what did they do to poor Arcturus Mengsk? He became a caricature, a bit of a little Hitler/Gargamel hybrid. Very disappointing. Here's hoping these characters return to quality again.

Yea, I liked Mengsk. In retrospect it does seem Brood War had a much weaker storyline. The UED disillusioned me. Kerrigan was just a bore (I hated playing the zerg after playing with the protoss/terrans for so long and watching the people I rescued get killed).

On a side note, its been what ? Ten years since the last original IP from Blizzard? WC3 was pretty much Starcraft rewritten . It seems Blizzard are sticking to what works way too often if you ask me. I'm still looking forward to the game but the fact that it looks,plays,and sounds the same doesn't really reassure me. Is it Starcraft 1.5 with new graphics and an extended storyline (which I bet will probably also end with a Kerrigan/Arthas like figure screwing everyone over).

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Well, I would still greatly desire a Starcraft 1.5, but I think it has a lot more up its sleeve if you ask me. I'm playing through singleplayer Starcraft again and it's still every bit as enjoyable as it was in '98.

I liked the UED though. Gerard DuGalle, rest his soul, was cool and has certainly not been cloned in other Blizzard games yet.

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Right Rodi, I too am expecting some big reveals from Blizzard closer to the actual release date. What those could be I have no idea.

Oooh oooh I just thought of something possibly innovative in the game! The liquid particle dynamics AI of the zerg swarms. That's pretty exciting from a tech standpoint if you ask me.

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In the absence of any real news concerning units or releasedates or whatnot, I've written another piece on Starcraft, this time about the interaction between the game and the player, and how that ties into the narrative.

Check it out underneath the comic:

www.captainaugust.com

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Man, I am totally psyched for this. I don't usually like RTS games, but I *love* Blizzard's sense of aesthetics and I really, really love Starcraft....so yeah!

Also, it's not "tough guys in space" it's "rednecks in space" which makes the whole thing work. The marines are less an emulation of every video game army-guy ever and more a parody of every video game army-guy ever. And it doesn't matter, because the Zerg will kill all your asses anyway!

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You have suddenly instilled in me a great need to play Starcraft again :yep:

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The cover story of the latest PC Gamer is all about Starcraft II. The feature highlights the development process and decision-making and shows an ample amount of Protoss units, including old-hats such as the Reavers, Templars and Archons.

Other tidbits:

Hero units will not be as important or require as much management as they did in Warcraft III.

The current plan is to keep the unit cap at 200. In terms of unit higlighting, the development team is testing the option to let you select an unlimited of units at the same time.

Blizzard consulted with top competitive SC and WCIII players from Korea for the balance and design process.

The ideal SCII match will last less than 20 minutes.

No decisions have been made as to minimum system requirements, but Blizzard has always made games for a wide range of computers. The team did note that a Shader Model 2.0-compatible graphics card will be required. (That's GeForce FX, Radeon 9000 or better, PC Gamer reports.)

Everything we've previously seen or read, the feature stressed, is subject to change. Here's hoping we get some more information (or hands-on time) at this year's BlizzCon. The latest PC Gamer is on newsstands now.

And in case some of you are going to BlizzCon.

Blizzard informs us that StarCraft II will be playable at the Aug. 3-4 BlizzCon event being held at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. Demo stations will be set up at the convention and attendees will even be able to experience multiplayer battles.

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Major Bump! (that sounds like a character from a military comedy)

I've gotten in to the beta! =D *dodges thrown fruit*

I'm loving it so far, even though it's the first time I've dared to delve into the world of online RTS-playing.

My full thoughts are here. (sorry about the shame-less blog link, but it's pretty long.)

Anyone else in the beta? Thoughts? Match-ups? Forming of 2v2 teams?

(Chris and Nick, I know you're digging it hard-core, come post too <.<)

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Send me a friends invite Hermie, It's Sully.InDahood (Don't ask me why I picked that, its dumb I know, I needed something after the .)

I'm in bronze league, I'm alright at the game I guess but no great player by any means I'm down for some 1v1s. I hope they change that identifier system where you have to have both names of a person to send them a friends invite, especially snice it only shows the first one while in a game lol.

Also, blizzard is sending out, "Invite a friend" beta keys. I got one today, so start begging your friends that are in for their key if you're not in.

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I'll add you right away. ^^

I'm very new to the beta, so I haven't gotten the friend codes yet.

Oh, and I'm Timor.Hermie if anyone else wants to add me.

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I just tried to add you hermie and it said could not be found, are you in another country besides the US? I heard we might not be able to friend each other, stupid bnet. WHat's the email you registered with? Maybe that will work...

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Anyone still got an invite-a-friend code to give away to the most depressed person on this planet? I've been excited about SC2 since they announced it back in 2007 and I opt'ed-in for the beta the day it started and I haven't been given a key.

I haven't got any friends who are interested in the game and so they have no keys to give me. T_T *Sad Bambi eyes*

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If you want to play vs/with a noob who is in the copper league and is still trying to re-learn RTS gaming, my game account is liquid.gwj. For EU beta testers only.

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hehehe I just had a nice win today on Scrap Station TvZ. I snuck an SCV in to scout and saw him building a roach warren so I knew the mass roaches were coming, so I walled up, and quick teched to double starports with tech labs, and built 4 banshees so when he attacked me with his 10 roaches he just got owned. Then I flew to his base and rocked him with the banshees he couldn't even attack lol

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I'm getting really interested in this now. I'm terrible at RTS games, SC in particular, but for some reason I've spent the last 2 days watching SC2 beta videos. Something about the safety net of the matchmaking tied to your battle.net account has fooled me into thinking I'll enjoy the multiplayer this time.

Anyways, after watching hours of videos with commentary, I've come to the conclusion that Idle Thumbs must provide commentary for an SC2 replay. Chris could provide the play-by-play with his technical know-how and a reluctant Jake could bring the colour commentary. You could even bring in Nick on skype/vent.

The guys doing the commentary on the current videos either suffer from inexperience with broadcasting, terrible English or a general social awkwardness.

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Check out some of Day 9's stuff on team liquid and ustream, he's a good broadcaster and gives a lot of good info out without being elitist and obtuse with his verbage

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