Starcraft 2

[Patters]

I've just re-read my post and it didn't make much sense sorry.

The way I understood things from the Protoss missions, I knew

Kerrigan needed to be kept alive to save everyone from the hybrids. The way they introduced the "turn her back Human" artifact, I just assumed 'kept alive' meant 'alive and not Zerg'. This is why Raynor saved her and conveniently was able to turn her back Human in the process.

They could be going down the route Forbin suggested though i.e.

Raynor's screwed things up by turning her Human and did it for love as they've introduced the whole Raynor/Kerrigan storyline that wasn't really there before

I guess we just wait and see though.

Does anyone really care?

[CaptainFish]

This post is kinda spoilery, I guess don't read it if you're not done the game.

This is conjecture, but I think it's all a set up for Kerrigan to get control of the various rogue zerg broods. Kerrigan is a powerful psychic and the zerg are controlled psychically, so now that she's experienced the proper wavelength to exert that control, she'll be able to slowly rebuild her control over the zerg. That'll be a big part of why she'll have to build up her swarm much like Raynor. If they keep that part of the gameplay similar (which I think is the plan right now)

I'm assuming the death of the Kerrigan would mean that the protoss zerg hybrids would have full control of the zerg swarms. That's been proven in Brood War to be enough to crush all opposition, but with the aid of the hybrids it would be overwhelming. In that possible future it seems like the zerg have just taken over the entire universe.

[Forbin]

The way Capcom would have ended SC2:

http://i.imgur.com/M7CMh.jpg

[elmuerte]

The way Capcom would have ended SC2:

http://i.imgur.com/M7CMh.jpg

IDGI

[Forbin]

The image isn't mine, but I was refering to the type of nonsensical twists Capcom has perpetrated.

ie: Bionic Commando's Wife-arm

[elmuerte]

oh wait... now I see it, Kerrigan changed into Tosh.

[Irishjohn]

This post is kinda spoilery, I guess don't read it if you're not done the game.

This is conjecture, but I think it's all a set up for Kerrigan to get control of the various rogue zerg broods. Kerrigan is a powerful psychic and the zerg are controlled psychically, so now that she's experienced the proper wavelength to exert that control, she'll be able to slowly rebuild her control over the zerg. That'll be a big part of why she'll have to build up her swarm much like Raynor. If they keep that part of the gameplay similar (which I think is the plan right now)

I'm assuming the death of the Kerrigan would mean that the protoss zerg hybrids would have full control of the zerg swarms. That's been proven in Brood War to be enough to crush all opposition, but with the aid of the hybrids it would be overwhelming. In that possible future it seems like the zerg have just taken over the entire universe.

That makes sense to me. Although I was expecting to play as the "bad" guys in Heart of the Swarm. And what about

zombie zerg Tychus

?

[CaptainFish]

Kerrigan being the star of Heart of the Swarm has been confirmed for a while. Although playing an actual villain would more fit the classic Starcraft mold.

[Drath]

Wow, lots of negativity here about the story. Since when do we see good story in an RTS game anyways? I think this is the best the genre has ever had personally. I think there's only so much you can do when you try to inject story into something that puts you in a god-third-person perspective anyways - that's more of a genre flaw. We need to spawn some units out of a building somehow, master in the sky, will you click the buttons for that? Also, drag your mouse over us so you can move us over there to get some minerals that somehow make the guys.

We sadly will never see the Citizen Kane of RTS games.

Personally, I thought the story was pretty good, the characters were decent; albeit, slapped together in some scenes - but it flowed a long quite nicely with spacial interjections of TV news, character dialog and interactions on the ship. It also did it's job - taught you how to play the multi-player game (except inexplicably removing units so you are confused). But maybe I just play Halo and baby games too much.

Also, for the friend spreadsheet thingy, where do you grab that code from?

[Sully907]

It's not so much that the story is bad that's dissapointing, that I could live with. It's that everything else about the game is so brilliant. So much money poured into the multiplayer design, great map editor, top notch competitive and casual multiplayer, great visuals and voice over work, but they forgot to write a compelling narrative along with it. So it feels like a huge missed opportunity.

[Patters]

I think the bigger problem is that Blizzard genuinely think that it's good.

[Sully907]

I think the bigger problem is that Blizzard genuinely think that it's good.

Not to mention wasn't there a quote recently from blizzard saying they don't even know how the freakin story is going to end yet?!?!

[Orv]

I'm going to toss this mini-rant in here. It's a discussion I've had several times in various communities (MMOs, FPS, Lords Management) over the past couple months, and I want to see what the Thumbs think of it;

Starcraft 2 sucks. As a game in the RTS genre, it is dated, archaic and somewhat bland. In the graphics department, it is entirely passable, well done Blizzard. In the gameplay area, it is a vile abomination.

What I mean by this is that Starcraft 2 (as several people have noted, and Three Moves Ahead is primarily what started this train of thought) is antiquated. Its game concepts, ideas and functionality are still essentially from the RTS genre, circa 1999. I'd have to poke around to find the first RTS that granted each type of unit a specific ability, but I'd be willing to be it's not any later than 2002. (If even that. I may have missed something entirely obvious.)

It plays with the conventions of SC1 and does nothing to update them. It has been specifically balanced (no mil-select drag-box, no cycle/repeat queues, etc) to allow for an archaic, and frankly annoying style of play. It does not innovate, it barely renovates and it is certainly not something that has brought anything new to the genre.

As the most anticipated RTS game of the last decade, Starcraft 2 is perhaps the biggest failure. It brings nothing but the same-ol' same-ol' to the table, and the PC is not better off for it.

(Shit, I sound like some kind of game reviewer. BLEACH, STAT.)

Thoughts? I can extrapolate if my invective was too cyclical.

[Roderick]

I'm having a hard time understanding why people are so upset with Starcraft 2 using an -in their eyes- archaic model of gameplay. Why should this matter in the first place? It seems to me you're placing Starcraft 2 in a deliberately unfavorable context, but more than that, it's based on an assumption that's not entirely logical. Why is something that is old necessarily something bad?

I can fully support an opinion that says that you don't like SC2 because you don't like the gameplay for whatever reason. But it seems such an artificial construction to knock it just because it uses a style of gameplay that's been around. That in itself says little about its quality.

[Orv]

It's a quality game. Polished, balanced, well made, quite stunning at the right times.

What I'm saying is I'd like a tad more innovation, a little less 1999 in my RTS.

I'm a huge fan of the Age of Empires series. Age of Empires 2 probably holds my second greatest hours played to date. (Even TF2 at 357 hours isn't half-way to it.) But Age of Mythology, without doubt, holds my greatest. If I think about it, I could probably guess at some 1.5k hours of Age of Mythology played.

Part of it was the people I played it with. Part of it was it was something new, and fun. But an even larger slice than both of those, is that it brought new ideas to the table. Ideas that have, in some ways, been discarded.

My big problem with SC2 is that is continue to allow the RTS genre to stagnate. They could have innovated in unheard-of ways, because they are Blizzard. Because they are Blizzard, they would have gotten these right. Because it is Starcraft, people would have given it a massive chance at being something new, and improving RTS forever.

But they didn't. It's SC1 in a new engine with three (four?) new features. This angers me. This angers me because RTS is the genre I prefer, even if I don't play it overmuch in this day and age. Part of the reason I don't is the stagnation and slow death of the genre.

(I may just be a reverse-crotchety old man, and I have this horrible feeling Remo will find this thread and devour my soul for my impudence, but I really feel this way. SC2 pisses me off.)

[Irishjohn]

That kind of criticism is interesting to me, but it also reminds me that I have absolutely zero interest in an advanced RTS of that type. I have gotten into Starcraft 2 a lot more than I expected, and I think that's in large part thanks to the 1999ness of the game. I really, really enjoy it. As for more nuanced advances in RTS gameplay, to be honest I couldn't care less, except maybe for Dawn of War II (which I never played online).

As for the story, yeah, it's a serious bummer that Blizzard are so in love with it. It's basically the Warhammer 40k universe with rednecks anyway. That I don't mind, but the story (at least in Wings of Liberty) was pretty cringeworthy, and Blizzard seem to think they're kicking ass in the storytelling department. By the end of the game the only character I really cared about even remotely was probably the dwarf engineer, and mostly because he reminded me of all the fun I had playing Dragon Age. Hopefully the next two games will get better, because Raynor being a "bad-ass" really isn't going to cut it.

Although I did like leading the Protoss in a last ditch fight against the dying of the light. That was pretty cool, although I assume it's not supposed to ever happen. That would be a really weird third game.

[Forbin]

The problem with the criticisms such as the one made on 3 moves ahead, is that they take for granted the quality of other RTS games. DoW2 is not a strategy game so much as a bare bones RPG.

Also, to write the single player of SC2 as "1999" is a bit ridiculous.

[Irishjohn]

The problem with the criticisms such as the one made on 3 moves ahead, is that they take for granted the quality of other RTS games. DoW2 is not a strategy game so much as a bare bones RPG.

Also, to write the single player of SC2 as "1999" is a bit ridiculous.

Well to be honest, I haven't been playing RTS games much in quite a while. I was going with the flow on the 1999 vibe. I think it's not a complete stretch to point out that Starcraft 2 doesn't deviate from Starcraft 1 a huge amount. It's a refinement of what they had initially.

Once again, I love this game. First game that ever got me interested in playing multiplayer competitively. If Bronze is really considered competitive.

[Drath]

Orvidos, while your theory is correct, this was all intentional on Blizzard's part. If you played in the early betas or read some of the original design threads and docs you will see a pattern of them constantly removing complexity and advanced functions. They wanted to boil it to the simplest form possible to create the "sport" like competitive nature of the game. With more complexity and variables, the less competitive it would seem - it would be more about strategy than dexterity/micro-management. While strategy is important in Starcraft 2 (or even Starcraft) it's very much less so then most other modern RTS that you talk about.

That's why there is no military select, no advanced macro commands, no military queue, etc. All those things remove it from the dexterity arena that Starcraft thrived at.

I too loved Age of Mythology, and probably have nearly thousands of hours into it, but it's easy to see the difference between the games in terms of complexity - there was a lot more strategy in AoM, and even more so in AoM:T (added the military queue).

The debate whether games should always "innovate" is fairly weak considering we have Mega Man 9/10. Simple working things beat complex things because they tend to break (if you want a bullshit analogy thrown in).

[Orv]

Orvidos. . .(if you want a bullshit analogy thrown in).

I tend to agree. It just frustrates me that things like The X____ of War series and Dawn of War and Sins of a Solar Empire have come along and enriched the genre, and the biggest RTS game of the last decade (arguably in opinion, but probably fact in sales) doesn't do anything to help the genre, and is essentially a useless remake.

It's kind of, as I said, a reverse-old man effect, but it still bugs me to no end. Especially when a studio like Ensemble Studios got shut down.

Also, Forbin. I apologize if Starcraft was not originally released in '99. I just dredged up a year I felt was right, but was probably wrong, and went with it.

Further edits: I didn't address Drath's main point. The fact that Blizzard did it intentionally is probably what infuriates me most. Because as I said, they could likely have gotten away with changing/warping Starcraft 2 if it had the usual Blizzard polish and balance.

[Drath]

They probably could have gotten away with changing it, but why would they need to? They want the people that played Starcraft to play Starcraft II - this wasn't a game for new adopters (maybe somewhat?); they know their target market exactly. Starcraft players wanted Starcraft with good graphics and a better interface.

I'm not exactly on either side of the fence here because I wasn't all the huge into Starcraft I (besides playing through the single-player). Yet, I still find Starcraft II easy to get into because of the lack of complexity and go straight into the competitive thing. I don't care that it isn't innovative, it's still fun for me and that's all I care about (GAMES ARE MEANT TO BE FUN ). I don't think you can make some connection between a "death of RTS genre" and Starcraft 2 - if anything it promotes it, makes developers realize they can still do it (well, besides, Ensemble ). If you want to point fingers at why there isn't more RTS games, point at the modern console.

[Thrik]

I can see the argument for Blizzard being in a good position to experiment, but this is the first sequel to an exceedingly popular RTS that appealed to a certain type of player. And when those players have waited like a decade for that first sequel, you can bet your ass what they want is more Starcraft — not some crazily experimental thing that turns the industry on its head (although Blizzard is more in the business of taking what works and refining it, not innovating).

Relic tried that with Dawn of War 2 and while it might have produced a decent game, it also alienated those who loved its predecessor and were expecting something of a similar formula. I'm all for innovation, but particular series have particular player expectations. Starcraft 2 had to be what it is in order to satisfy the legions of existing Starcraft fans, and as it turns out many who've not played the original like it too.

If you're not that bothered about seeing more of the Starcraft formula, then hell don't go and buy its sequel. It's not like other studios haven't been mixing stuff up.

[CaptainFish]

I don't think it would be easy to improve upon one of the best if not the best RTS ever. The original Starcraft was seminal in it's design as a asymmetrical base building RTS. Since it's creation I don't really think anyone has attempted to make a game where the factions are so mechanically different and yet has such great balance.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with polishing your gameplay in a sequel. Especially when the game you're improving is still relevant. The masses of dudes who love Starcraft aren't looking for squad based, hero focused, cover integrated mechanics. They're looking for refinement and balance. If it had been a new franchise I would understand the griping a bit more, but as it stands they did the right thing.

It would be cool if Blizzard still had a regular RTS development team that would actually create a new franchise in the next 4 years, but there's no chance of that happening.

[Forbin]

I wasn't implying that you got the launch date of Starcraft wrong, but to claim that SC2 doesn't have the polish or innovation of a typical 2010 game is crazy. There's not a lot you can do with a single player RTS game, and though some people don't like the story that much, I have to say it's probably the best anyone's ever done with a campaign.

And the multiplayer has been massively successful. With tournaments offering the highest cash payouts in e-sports history, diverse gameplay and recognizable celebrities the pro scene is flourishing. While players of all skill are able to play in an un-smurfable ladder, that matches them against players of their skill level on a consistent basis. And there are a ton of spectators, since it's actually fun to watch, and doesn't require intimate knowledge of the game.

If the entire criticism of SC2 being dated, stems from it being an economy based game without RPG elements, I just don't buy it. There seems to be an assumption that the genre evolved and Blizzard ignored what others were doing. But to be honest, the genre only evolved because it couldn't compete. Starcraft has been the dominant game for over a decade.

The metrics on things like this are shady at best, but I think it's safe to say even the most successful RTS games over the past 10 years were just a blip on the radar compared to SC:BW.

Just because Starcraft 2 isn't a tactical squad rpg, doesn't mean it's out of date.

[Orv]

Just because Starcraft 2 isn't a tactical squad rpg, doesn't mean it's out of date.

Not what I mean. I don't think I can satisfactorily explain what my issues with the game are, so I'll let it go and just fume in a corner.

P.S. Satisfactorily for you folks to understand what I mean at least. I know what my problems are with it, my odd thought process doesn't allow it to percolate enough into a form that normal people can understand.