Words cannot express the overwhelming joy I feel inside. And it’s no MMO thank God.

http://www.starcraft2.com/
http://www.blizzard.com/

Just in case anyone had any doubt in their mind:

[quote author=“Blizzard FAQ”]As with all of Blizzard’s recent releases, StarCraft II will ship on both PC and Mac simultaneously.

I would like to note that I posted this: http://pc.ign.com/articles/788/788627p1.html at 1AM MST last night… thismorning, whatever, so yeah. live in the channel people!!!!

I’m surprised. I was sure they were going to announce that they were annexing South Korea.

I think my head just exploded.

I must say that I’d be much more excited for Diablo 3, and I am about 10 times more excited at the hint of a new Deus Ex game:

http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=25638028&sid=6171079&action=convert&om_clk=latestnews&tag=latestnews;title;0

I’d be more excited for a Diablo 3 as well. Graphics for SCII don’t look as cool as the original. They look like every other RTS on the market at the moment.

Mt_K3 - 20 May 2007 03:42 AM

Graphics for SCII don’t look as cool as the original. They look like every other RTS on the market at the moment.

Blizzard has never been known for their originality or innovation when it comes to graphics (or anything if you ask me ). All their games have been graphically behind their peers when released.
Starcraft was using Warcraft graphics after games like Myth had been released, Diablo 2 still used sprites far after the polygon era, WC3 had stylized low-poly models, and World of Warcraft was not as graphically advanced as it’s peers of EverQuest 2 and Lineage 2.

Of course that hasn’t stopped fanboys from lauding the SC2 trailer as being the best graphics they’ve ever seen in a game (seriously, just go to any gaming website and read the comments).

What really matters is the fact that SC2 is not going to innovate gameplay-wise (unless Blizzard somehow throws a 10 year track record out the window).

Mt_K3 - 20 May 2007 03:42 AM

I’d be more excited for a Diablo 3 as well. Graphics for SCII don’t look as cool as the original. They look like every other RTS on the market at the moment.

TO HELL WITH DIABLO 3 NO PUN INTENDED. Diablo has had two games and an expansion. And frankly Diablo and Warcraft parallel each other in similar ways.

I DEMAND SCI-FI AND SCI-FI IT WILL BE. Blizzard owed us, the fans, one. When they hyped the release of Starcraft Ghost for then last-gen, but middle-aged consoles, people cried foul it was a Starcraft exclusive to consoles only, not the deserving PC/Mac title they wanted, and not even an RTS for that matter. After a while I grew used to the idea that Ghost might not be so bad after all, that at least it would be Starcraft, have a continuing storyline to one of my all-time favorite games and I’d buy for my Gamecube. Then they killed the GC support. No big deal I thought, one of my friends would buy it for their console and I’d play it there. But we all know the story, time passed, they changed developers at least twice, delays and more delays. Finally when everyone thought it was coming after a live playable version at the first Blizzcon, they had the nerve to sweep it under the rug and lock it up a few months later. STATUS: VAPORWARE.

I don’t mean to sound like a total Blizzard fanboy, even though I do and there’s still alot I complain about with Blizzard, but GODDAMMIT THEY OWE US THIS.

And concerning the graphics, why complain? A) It’s probably still at least a year from release and B) Blizzard has adopted their unique style of game design per Warcraft III and WoW. It’s never been bad looking, no one has really complained about the slightly cartoonish look, it suits them well. From a technical standpoint, it’s probably better with the reduced polygon count, easier to model, script, and make textures for resulting in lower system requirements. More importantly, statistics from the WoW playerbase show that Blizzard has done an excellent job of predicting what most of its users have in capable hardware TODAY. So instead of developing games (a la Doom 3) which are intended for all the best and upcoming hardware of tomorrow that only niche gamers will go for (and able to run as intended), Blizzard makes games that EVERYONE ELSE can run decently on that PC they bought 2-3 years ago.

I, for one, am just thankful that it’s not another MMO, I have been off WoW for almost 2 months and I really don’t intend to return. And with rumors flying for the past couple weeks about a new Blizzard game, I sure as hell didn’t want a Starcraft game that costs me extra to play every month. No more of that. I look forward to some renewed LAN action with my buddies when this thing comes out.

They just announced it today, they’ll probably reveal more of what’s new and different in the next couple of months. You know this thing is going to fly off the shelves regardless just because… RIGHT GAF?! Right.

Do you think Blizzard will make an MMO for Starcraft? If so, what about the name for it?

If Bliz does come out with another MMO, it wont be until they dont think they can get any more money out of WoW. So… probably like, 2 more expansions or something retarded.

It’s been quite a while since I played a RTS that really sucked me in on the single-player scene. Last one probably was WC3 actually… Homeworld 2 had potential but I gave it up in pure frustration after a bit…

Blizzard doesn’t make the most advanced game, or original… but they tend to do them simple to pick up and go. That’s their true power…. now some games they make TOO simple like the Diablos… which I have yet to truly enjoy… always felt like an RPG dumbed down to a FPS design level to me.

StarCraft had a great singleplayer but I have yet to play one fun multiplayer game of it. And while I did play a lot of WC3 online, it was only fun (and extremely so) in the pure IMG/DoB games… the tournament ladder games and so on we tried got beyond boring with all teams going early hero zergs 105% of the time… almost as bad as zergling rushes in SC. Best part of WC3 for me was still the singleplayer campaign, and the same will most probably go for SC2. Hopefully there’ll be fun mindless online mods like DotA and the Tower Defence maps as well because I love a good cooperative setting.

I understand the excitement, but man, after WarCraft 3…. I don’t think I’ll pick it up. Not because its won’t be a good game, in fact I think it’ll be likely a great game but because I just didn’t have a lot of fun playing WC3 because I wasn’t good enough (the IMG only matches weren’t bad but we’d often try and play other teams and lose badly). I refused to put in time to be good at it.

RTSes are kinda confined to being insanely complex in order to further the genre. Its not wrong, but man, all those counters and proper attack strategies, and now with micro management? Oy.  It keeps causal players out. :(

Greg G - 20 May 2007 01:55 PM

RTSes are kinda confined to being insanely complex in order to further the genre. Its not wrong, but man, all those counters and proper attack strategies, and now with micro management? Oy.  It keeps causal players out. :(

Greg is right. That is sad, and probably the reason why ozzy always royally whoops me in our RoN and AoE III games. All the numbers and strategies and stuff just goes way over my head. All I do is make dudes and send them to die, which is still awesome fun (and sometimes I win against ozzy when I’m allied with a CPU!).

Bah…my problem is I always find one strategy that works, and then just lock into that strategy.  For instance, in RoN, I have a very effective strategy for building a massive army capable of destroying any one and a resource structure to support it.  However, it could definitely be countered effectively, I’m just not going to tell you how. 

When I used to play WC3 with my roommates 4 years ago it would be pretty fun.  We all got decent at it, and one person would develop a strategy that would work amazingly well for 2-3 games, until the next person evolved to counter it, and that would work well for 2-3 games, etc.  It was similar to our 2v2 Halo games when we would do CTF on Hang ‘Em High and the game would take 1.5 hours to get to 3 captures and we would all end up with 100-150 kills because we were all very evenly balanced and knew what the other person was going to be doing and where they would be at all times.