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lol, no. The post isn't about Trump. I suppose the reason it seems incoherent to you is that you probably don't play StarCraft. It should have occurred to me that the article would be as likely to attract people interested in AI as much as StarCraft.
Mea Culpa, I should have provided some background.

Most StarCraft players know that the multi-million dollar professional StarCraft competitions are totally dominated by the Koreans, specifically Koreans from South Korea.

Here's some background.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://wcs.starcraft2.com/en-...

I see I'm not the only one who thought the name was similar to Terra-Tron.

I found a new sketch drawing of the project.

Does it? I have zero interest in online play for StarCraft. It's also worth noting that Blizzard is planning two standalone expansions, neither of which will be necessary for a complete online experience. That is, they're single player-only expansions. Blizzard apparently thinks, probably correctly, that most of their money is coming from people who are primarily interested in the campaigns.

Incorrect sir.

From the Official StarCraft II FAQ:

Q: Will we still be able to play multiplayer matches of StarCraft II with all three races?

        A: Yes! From the beginning, StarCraft II will be a fully featured multiplayer game, and all three races will be available for competitive play.

Q: How will the expansion sets impact multiplayer gameplay?

        A: The expansion sets will add new content to each race for use in multiplayer matches. This could include additions such as new units, abilities, and structures, along with new maps and Battle.net updates.

Q: If I buy StarCraft II but don't buy any of the expansion sets, will I still be able to play online?

        A: Yes. This will work similarly to Warcraft III and the original StarCraft, which maintained separate online gaming lobbies and ladders for expansion set players and players with the base Warcraft III or StarCraft.

http://starcraft2.com/faq.xml
They're not going to have "tiered access" or whatever. You're raging about nothing. All races will be available for multiplayer no matter which Starcraft 2 you buy.

And Blizzard didn't invent paid expansions in MMOs. WoW is quite obviously based on EQ. If you really feel that strongly about the issue, you should have done your homework.

Despite MW2's $60 PC price, the vast majority of PC games retail at $50. That's a simple fact. There is no reason to believe that the game will cost more than that.

WoW's monthly fee is hardly "inflated"... $15 is the standard rate for modern MMOs. And it's hardly a 5 year old game. The WoW of today is nothing like the WoW of 2005. Their customer service is far from perfect, and I doubt few will argue that. But it's a T-rated game and of course they're going to be pro-censorship.

No one's forcing anyone to buy SCII or Diablo III. Expansions may have spawned "the DLC debauchery", but as you said, Blizzard's releases are polished. I have no reason to believe that their developers are ripping anyone off that way.

TL;DR Of course Blizzard loves money. They're a business. But you're overreacting.

-a former WoW player

I don't understand knocking Blizzard for splitting this into three releases. There's going to be 26 to 30 missions in the first Terran-only single-player campaign (source), which would put it on par with the first Starcraft. Presumably, there will be 26-30 missions in each of the following stories, plus additional units (as Blizzard has done whenever they've released an expansion to the game). Blizzard has never developed and released a half-baked expansion in its entire history; the closest thing might be Diablo: Hellfire, which was developed by an outside company, and I don't know if it was priced appropriately on release.

So what's the hate for, beyond the usual fishing for things to hate? If you really don't think it's going to be good value to you, wait until it goes on sale, or just don't buy the game. Chess is freely available to all.

According to Blizzard; no. The first game will only contain one campaign, the human one I think, but will contain full multi-player, including all the units and races from the next two expansions. Thus, if you are only interested in multi-player you can completely ignore the two other campaigns.

You are unfortunately wrong there.

From http://www.starcraft2.com/faq.xml

How will the expansion sets impact multiplayer gameplay?
The expansion sets will add new content to each race for use in multiplayer matches. This could include additions such as new units, abilities, and structures, along with new maps and Battle.net updates.

In other words you *will* need all three expansions for multiplayer matches. Of course they won't force it, but that would be exactly like playing wow at lvl 60 when everybody is lvl 80.

http://www.starcraft2.com/beta-faq.xml

Unless they plan on adding extra multiplayer goodies to the subsequent "episode", then the real driver to buy anything after the first one would have to be a nice, solid single player-experience and plot-line.

From the official Starcraft II FAQ:

How will the expansion sets impact multiplayer gameplay?

The expansion sets will add new content to each race for use in multiplayer matches. This could include additions such as new units, abilities, and structures, along with new maps and Battle.net updates.

However, they are definitely not neglecting single-player. Here's the latest news on all the work they're putting into single-player, and here's a video with a glimpse of the campaign.

The expansion sets will add new content to each race for use in multiplayer matches. This could include additions such as new units, abilities, and structures, along with new maps and Battle.net updates.

Annnnnnd

This will work similarly to Warcraft III and the original StarCraft, which maintained separate online gaming lobbies and ladders for expansion set players and players with the base Warcraft III or StarCraft.

I've been defending Blizzard's no LAN support decision, but this is getting ridiculous.

Will we still be able to play multiplayer matches of StarCraft II with all three races?

Yes! From the beginning, StarCraft II will be a fully featured multiplayer game, and all three races will be available for competitive play.

How will the expansion sets impact multiplayer gameplay?

The expansion sets will add new content to each race for use in multiplayer matches. This could include additions such as new units, abilities, and structures, along with new maps and Battle.net updates.

If I buy StarCraft II but don't buy any of the expansion sets, will I still be able to play online?

Yes. This will work similarly to Warcraft III and the original StarCraft, which maintained separate online gaming lobbies and ladders for expansion set players and players with the base Warcraft III or StarCraft.

Maybe they can spend some of their spare time polishing the web site. With javascript off (via noscript) http://www.starcraft2.com/ is a blank page.

Be sure to check out the Terratron.

Who cares about WoW? More importantly the first battle report of Starcraft 2 use torrents for full res video to!

Anyway, I find it somewhat disturbing that Blizzard use torrent technology since downloads are often slow but if I remember correctly downloads was even slower before and if they save money on bandwidth I guess it's good for them.

Try the StarCraft II website, http://www.starcraft2.com/ ...Their screenshots are in the neighborhood of 1600x1200.

You're obviously not familiar with the Tauren Marine

(In case you're wondering, it was part of this year's April Fools)

I read somewhere that Starcraft 2 will work on XP. That somewhere? The offical Starcraft Faq. It will support Win XP http://www.starcraft2.com/faq.xml.

So you're suggesting they call it Starcraft the movie? ;D

That fanbase is hopefully about to get bigger, and stronger now that StarCraft 2 will be out next year. Time will tell if StarCraft 2 will be one of the best games ever made.

Will StarCraft II be available on Mac simultaneously with PC?

As with all of Blizzard's recent releases, StarCraft II will ship on both PC and Mac simultaneously.

Exactly : http://starcraft2.com/layout/

Guys, right on the FAQ at www.starcraft2.com , they answer the question, of course there will be support for OSX. http://www.starcraft2.com/faq.xml It is listed under their "Technical Aspects" area.

The game will be available for Mac OS X as well, and the videos hosted on the official StarCraft II site are in DivX format - I'm guessing the gametrailers.com site converted them.

Will StarCraft II be available on Mac simultaneously with PC?

As with all of Blizzard's recent releases, StarCraft II will ship on both PC and Mac simultaneously.

will run on both XP and Vista.

Like most recent Blizzard releases, it will also ship simultaneously for the Mac.

The official site is up now too, with screenshots and movies.

(blatant plug: mirrors of the movies available here (Australian mirror))

The official site is up now too, with screenshots and movies.

(blatant plug: mirrors of the movies available here (Australian mirror))

The official site is up now too, with screenshots and movies.

(blatant plug: mirrors of the movies available here (Australian mirror))

Official Website: Starcraft2.com

The CGI trailer and gameplay footage are available in high quality versions (and in english) at the following link:

Movies

It uses BitTorrent the same way WoW patches work, hence the executables. The downloader for Windows seems to work perfectly using WINE.

Also, screenshots! Screenshots

Official Website: Starcraft2.com

The CGI trailer and gameplay footage are available in high quality versions (and in english) at the following link:

Movies

It uses BitTorrent the same way WoW patches work, hence the executables. The downloader for Windows seems to work perfectly using WINE.

Also, screenshots! Screenshots

You can just download the full videos instead of watching the crappy rips that people have put up on YouTube, etc: http://www.starcraft2.com/

http://www.starcraft2.com/ now up

About time too!

Oops, meant starcraft2.com

I wrote a bunch about it in my journal. Basically, its started off as a countdown timer on the blizzard site without any background (started at 10hours, I recall).
Each hour, during odd times, the clock flashed green for a second. People took down the time, noticed all numbers were between 0-25. They translated it to letters, then turned it around, and it made words that terran ghosts said when you clicked on them in starcraft ("Somebody call for an exterminator", etc...).
Each hour, the picture got more in focus.
Eventually, people started understanding that it had something to do with starcraft, so it moved to StarCraft2.com.

Now, everyone started looking at the 'fading in' picture, and trying to determine what it would be (there were two popular ideas, one was kerrigan, queen of the zerg, the other was a protoss-zerg hybrid).

Eventually, the time came up, found out it was a console shooter, and a million fans turned livid with the disappointment that SC2 still isn't even a thought at blizzard (yeah, they say they are gonna revisit it, but they've said that for YEARS).

It really puzzels me that Blizzard is putting it off. StarCraft is STILL one of the most popular online RTS's. Its not like they are still making money on SC anymore.
Why not just make a second one off the WC3 engine???

Nevertheless, Starcraft2.com is up.

First Star Craft 2 post, bitches!

Toasty!

-2 fer DFW!

...is Star Craft 2.

www.starcraft2.com.

Announcement tonight!!

Sad news I heard today on the radio, StarCraft, written by blizzard is alive. Not only is it alive, but it is soon to have a baby.


STAR CRAFT 2 IN THE HIZZOUSE!!!