Starcraft II Catch-All

Hero units will be in single player but not multiplayer.

Running the hero around the map to kill crabs for XP = F*CKING BORING

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Running the hero around the map to kill crabs for XP = F*CKING BORING

Agreed. I could barely ever beat the computer as the amount of micro management to build up a base, expand the base for resources, build defenses, build up an army, and keep the hero running around the map lvling up could obviously only be done effectively by the AI. I just didn't like multiplayer in that game at all, because of the hero. The single player campaign was pretty fun at times and the story was really awesome.

The only good thing that came out of that hero nonsense was WoW.

All I have to say is, damn the alpha is fun.

Devmani wrote:

All I have to say is, damn I'm a tool.

Why would you say that about yourself?

Devmani wrote:

All I have to say is, damn the alpha is fun.

What!? You are in the alpha!? Is there a NDA on it? If not, please share what you know please

Doesn't being in an alpha of this scope usually mean not even admitting you're in the alpha?

Devmani wrote:

All I have to say is, damn the alpha is fun.

I call shinanigans! Easy gents- he jests, he jests.

Evil Horde wrote:

Two divergent RTS games is much better then the same one with a different skin.

Well said, well said.

Well, since we are lightly and lovingly expressing our opinions (for now) I will say I wasn't a big fan of the 'you almost won a game of starcraft, but then kerrigan kicked the bucket so you lose' thing, which happened early in my SC career- later on it became, ok I'll lock her in the basement 3 minutes in until I win the round, etc.

Would you guys like heroes better (with rez costing resources), if they had a toggle that allowed for ability auto-purchase and auto-use that you could turn on or off based on your play-style? Similar to the Sins cap ships for example.

Or maybe you are actually ok with heroes, so long as they are in single-player only?

I can vouch for Devmani that he is legit in what he says. I've seen it first hand with others.

Dax wrote:

Would you guys like heroes better (with rez costing resources), if they had a toggle that allowed for ability auto-purchase and auto-use that you could turn on or off based on your play-style? Similar to the Sins cap ships for example.

No, it's not the activation of powers that makes them annoying. It's the constant constant constant baby-sitting required in multiplayer games to level them up.

Dax wrote:

Or maybe you are actually ok with heroes, so long as they are in single-player only?

More or less.

I'd disagree, I think having to micromanage the heroes powers is a royal PitA

lethial wrote:
Devmani wrote:

All I have to say is, damn the alpha is fun.

What!? You are in the alpha!? Is there a NDA on it? If not, please share what you know please :)

There is and I can't. I can however say that photos and video do not do it justice in terms of visual quality.

Starcraft 2 campaigns split into three seperate games

Not sure how I feel about that news. If they really deliver a full games worth of content in each one, that I'm all for it, depending on the price. $150 would be kind of hard to swallow.

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

I'm not buying into this one bit. Imagine if Diablo III was split into different games for each class.

SUCKS. 26-30 missions with a single race? That will get BORING. Especially with how same-y Starcraft gets in single player. "How should I tackle THIS mission? Oh yeah, I build guys." The multiplayer is different, but in SP I always found the gameplay to be a slog, necessary to experience the cool story. The big mitigating factor in this was that just when one race was becoming intolerable, you got a whole new one to screw around with. It was great! With this, NO SUCH LUCK.

First really huge mistake Blizzard has made in... ever? I very much doubt this would have happened before the Activision merge. This seems like some suit's idea. "OK, we're pretty close to running Guitar Hero into the ground... what now?"

"[The second and third games] will be like expansion packs, but we really want them to feel like standalone products," said Blizzard's Rob Pardo.

Each campaign will be very different, with Pardo saying the Zerg campaign will contain RPG elements. The Protoss campaigin will likewise be differentiated by elements of diplomacy. In addition, the Terran campaign will contain a Protoss mini-campaign.

Blizzard added that nothing has changed for the multiplayer plans. Each game is planned as a concentrated, epic storyline, with enough content to justify a full release. As a result, the games will now feature more in-game cinematics and story content.

I actually hate that idea. Hate it. Hate it with the fire of 1,000 forum trolls. It's not a friendly move for Blizzard's casual fans. If I like the original game, I now have to buy 2 expansions?

souldaddy wrote:
"[The second and third games] will be like expansion packs, but we really want them to feel like standalone products," said Blizzard's Rob Pardo.

Each campaign will be very different, with Pardo saying the Zerg campaign will contain RPG elements. The Protoss campaigin will likewise be differentiated by elements of diplomacy. In addition, the Terran campaign will contain a Protoss mini-campaign.

Blizzard added that nothing has changed for the multiplayer plans. Each game is planned as a concentrated, epic storyline, with enough content to justify a full release. As a result, the games will now feature more in-game cinematics and story content.

I actually hate that idea. Hate it. Hate it with the fire of 1,000 forum trolls. It's not a friendly move for Blizzard's casual fans. If I like the original game, I now have to buy 2 expansions?

Cry baby, you mean I have to buy 2 expansions. >.>

As long as the first game has all three races playable in multiplayer and a campaign story that's large enough and has enough varied gameplay to surpass the original then I'm there. That's pretty much the expectation that any full-priced game has to meet and I don't think Blizzard is dumb enough to think that they've found a loophole that will let them underdeliver. If all three campaigns truly are large and varied enough to meet the expectations of a full boxed project, then that's a net gain for the fans as I see it.

The single-player campaign has always been a sort of ramp-up and trainer for multiplayer. Now you'll have a game that I'm assuming will have all 3 races in multiplayer, but only teaches you the ins-and-outs of one race.

Other than that complaint, while I worry about only 1 race being repetitive, it doesn't bother me too much.

Devmani wrote:

Cry baby, you mean I have to buy 2 expansions. >.>

I don't care about the money. This doesn't sound like a greed-move by Blizzard. Err, Activision-Blizzard.

We're taking gamer fatigue here. I just don't want to play that much Starcraft campaign. Dress it up with RPG and diplomacy elements, ranch dressing, whatever. Would you read the first book of a trilogy if you didn't plan to read the other 2 books? You wouldn't read any of them.

Eh, I was already iffy on it just because I didn't like StarCraft all that much. But with only one race for single player? Yeah, I'm not a huge multiplayer guy so screw that. If I get this it'll be in the inevitable battlechest with all three that comes out a year or two after the last expansion/game.

This is probably to push up the release date.

I'm figuring that Starcraft is planned to release before Diablo 3 but Diablo 3 looks for all intents and purposes to be finishing up faster than expected. So they cut the other races single player to focus on one and release it sooner so that D3 isn't breathing down its neck.

Not saying I like this decision. But if this means D3 comes out sooner, I'm all for it!

Wow, has the D3 news wiped everything off anyone else's radar? They could pretty much tell me SC2 was releasing tomorrow and I'd say,"meh."

fangblackbone wrote:

This is probably to push up the release date.

I'm figuring that Starcraft is planned to release before Diablo 3 but Diablo 3 looks for all intents and purposes to be finishing up faster than expected. So they cut the other races single player to focus on one and release it sooner so that D3 isn't breathing down its neck.

Not saying I like this decision. But if this means D3 comes out sooner, I'm all for it!

Wow, has the D3 news wiped everything off anyone else's radar? They could pretty much tell me SC2 was releasing tomorrow and I'd say,"meh."

Not really the D3 news was cool and all. Then again maybe I'm biased on two fronts I'm playing SC2 and enjoying it a lot. I haven't got my hands on D3 yet.

Pardo noted that the decision was necessary to maintain the quality of the product, the alternatives either being a long delay of the game, or a scaling back of the campaigns.

Since when has Blizzard had a problem delaying a game until it's done?

Blizzard has a lot of goodwill built up, and if they announce the pricing to be something like $50 for the first part and $15 each for the next two, then it won't be too hard to swallow, but there is no way that I'd buy three $50 games here.

Of course, North America isn't really the target market for SC2, and I'm sure plenty of people in the SC-obsessed countries will gladly shell out the coin.

At any rate, I need more info to decide what to think about this, but the little bit of info that we have does not leave a good taste in my mouth at all.

Morro wrote:

SUCKS. 26-30 missions with a single race? [/i]"

Not missions, hours, I think.

Splitting it up does seem like a bad idea though. It wont be the same if you dont get to try all the races through singleplayer.
It does seem like a big mistake from Blizz side (except for making more money that is... but they would do that no matter what they did to sc2). But then again, Blizz usually manage to win no mater what they to, so Ill wait and see (and likely buy it anyway).

About D3, to me it seems to be VERY far from done. Lots of stuff seem to be on conceptual basis.

Serengeti wrote:
Pardo noted that the decision was necessary to maintain the quality of the product, the alternatives either being a long delay of the game, or a scaling back of the campaigns.

Of course, North America isn't really the target market for SC2, and I'm sure plenty of people in the SC-obsessed countries will gladly shell out the coin.

The really SC2 obsessed people are likely in it for the multiplayer though, and thus the separate campaigns wont matter for them, unless Blizz do make them real expansions with new units, balance etc, which of course is likely, but they wouldnt comment on that yet.

Funny enough I would love something like this for D3, with small content expansions over time, but I just dont think you can compare it to splitting up the campaign for a RTS. It would be like throwing out 3 skills trees for each class in d3 first, but only unlock the 2 of them in later expansions. At least all 3 races should have a bit of campaign in the first game to introduce them, which campaigns in RTS have generally been about (obviously Blizz want to do more than that, which is surely admireable, eve if the execution seem to be lacking).

Shadout wrote:

The really SC2 obsessed people are likely in it for the multiplayer though, and thus the separate campaigns wont matter for them, unless Blizz do make them real expansions with new units, balance etc, which of course is likely, but they wouldnt comment on that yet.

They commented to Kotaku. That is in fact the case.

This sounds a little confusing. I think back to Brood War and Frozen Throne. They added to the multiplayer and added a bit more story for each race. So instead of doing 3 different stories in an expansion for SC2 they will do 1. I may buy the first and wait for the battle chest. Not sure what this will do to online play, but I suspect many will do this as well to see if it is worth it.

Sad they had to complicate this so much. I guess they had to do something to squash the anticipation. Now it seems like I can actually wait for it now

indy wrote:

Starcraft 2 campaigns split into three seperate games

Not sure how I feel about that news. If they really deliver a full games worth of content in each one, that I'm all for it, depending on the price. $150 would be kind of hard to swallow.

Wow, this just went from "must buy" to "will not buy" THAT fast. It's not like Blizzard doesn't have enough money. I swear, game companies just seem to think that that customers are the dumbest things on the planet. Decisions like this make me think about taking up building models again as my hobby.

Freeagent wrote:

Wow, this just went from "must buy" to "will not buy" THAT fast. It's not like Blizzard doesn't have enough money. I swear, game companies just seem to think that that customers are the dumbest things on the planet. Decisions like this make me think about taking up building models again as my hobby.

That was my first reaction as well. But then I thought about the multiplayer aspect I would be missing out on

It is sad Blizzard has gone so...so...Activision on us. I think it official now...I preferred the pre-WoW Blizzard.

Long live Valve's TF2 and free updates!