Slashdot Mirror
Blizzard Hints At New StarCraft, Launches Burning Crusade
Game Developer Blizzard Entertainment's long-anticipated expansion to World of Warcraft has gone live. Initial impressions are ... not available, since all 8 million players are currently in the Outlands. I'll take that to mean the servers for the most part have not melted yet. At a Burning Crusade launch party, a Blizzard exec revealed we may see a new StarCraft game very soon. But today is all about WoW. If you're not playing, and want to live vicariously, check out WarCry's extensive preview of the expansion. You could read designer Jeff Kaplan's comments on new features at FiringSquad, or Shane Dibiri's talk of inspiration at Next Generation. One new expansion a year, eh? Some folks are already looking to the future, where we probably won't see WoW on consoles, but may see it with security dongles. 0.1% of the Earth's population can't all be wrong.
I know Blizzard is working on Starcraft 2, but it's nice to see it finally documented, thanks.
..but I was busy playing WoW
Your servers are not prepared!!
Serious aside: once you get your copy, there is no need to run the installer from the discs. All you need is the key to upgrade your account using the provided key—you already have all the content as of the 2.0 patch series. If you run the installer, it rolls your local copy back to 2.0.3, and once you start the game, you would go through two patch cycles back to 2.0.5. Save yourself some time and just upgrade your account directly at https://upgrade.worldofwarcraft.com/expansion/.
Why bother.
Outlands is a gankfest right now and pretty much every quest mob is being camped...
Plan B: grind in Winterspring.
I am BelDion's
Brain not working. Late night last. Up, leveling new Blood Elf. Damned if they are not the gayest video game characters ever.
Scrunchie? Scrunchie? Scrunchie!?
Why bother.
You have no idea how glad I am that I finally don't care about this story. I uninstalled the game last weekend, and I've moved the CDs to my "never gonna play that game again" spindle in the back of my closet.
That's one addiction that I'll never regret kicking.
It seems to me that Blizzard's life couldn't possibly get any better than it already is, why mess with it? Sit back, release an expansion once per year, and enjoy the torrent of cash.
Uh... they barely gave enough time for the "hardcore" guilds to get through the newest content (Naxx)... nevermind the casual players that had -no- chance of ever seeing the majority of end-game content that was out for 2 years.
Now they are promising 1x expansion every year?
Well, I guess that ensures everyone that they won't have a life for years to come.
Anyone who thinks that the delay wasn't on purpose is on warcrack. By "on purpose", I mean specifically "delayed to keep people paying monthly fees longer, simply because we know they will hang on for the expansion". Everything about the game is intended to keep you addicted longer. I got out, along with my kids, and we're all happier for it. Yes, 0.1% of the population can be wrong.
World of Warcraft is simply a pretty world where all players are pampered all along the way... :)
If you're looking for a real challange, try out EVE Online at http://www.eve-online.com/ .
You can also visit my eve-related blog at http://www.eve-pirate.com/
For the first time ever, World of Warcraft players meet in public. In real life. This allowed us to collect some interesting data about the demographics. Out of nearly 50 people standing around the EB Games where I picked up my copy, I think four were girls. Just saying. Something to think about next time you /flirt.
Why bother.
You'd think they'd make the game free since theres no single player action. Even if they lose $50 because they let you download it, they'll make up for it with your lifetime addiction.
Mac OS X client?
Why bother.
Congratulations, you missed the point.
The idea isn't to prevent piracy, but to provide some means of more secure authentication because people are getting their accounts "hacked" where "hacked" means they had an easily guessed username and password, or their machine is riddled with trojans and someone captured their password.
sorry but a PvP environment in any MMORPG doesn't hold a candle to the standard FPS environment. Any game where your skill can be overriden by someones accumulation of stuff by simply being in game longer isn't good PvP.
I could never understand the fascination with PvP in MMORPGs, let alone "white servers" where people go PvP on a whim, till I realized they don't want a challenge, they want to win. "Real challenge" - sheesh, if they wanted one they wouldn't be doing PvP in a MMORPG!
As far as Eve goes, yeah its great if you been in there forever, but new players aren't going to be much more than cannon fodder.
Obviously more people prefer WOW than Eve, so where's the desire for a "real challenge"?
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
..a new StarCraft game. It's been a while since I've seen anything that isn't WarCraft-related come out of that company. I know I'm not the only one that's eagerly awaiting more SC news.
Blerg.
"All in all, this is more of the same ... "
I have to tell you all that I absolutely hate this game. It is annoying and tedious ... and no I don't wanna join your bloody guild!
There are a lot of rumblings around the Starcraft gaming community about Starcraft 2. ahref=http://sc.gosugamers.net/news.php?id=5522/re l=url2html-31115http://sc.gosugamers.net/news.php? id=5522/> There is also an audio file of a top Counter strike tournament director speaking about Starcraft 2. ahref=http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/cevofull.mp3/rel =url2html-31115http://zanno.oddwebsite.com/cevoful l.mp3/> (Around 7:30 into the file).
IMHO I wouldn't want Starcraft 2 to come out as I still play Starcraft Broodwar actively and I think it is perfect in every way.
GL HF!
I noticed that most of the posts in this are griping about how much they hate WoW or how glad they are to have kicked the habit. I have a feeling that's because everyone else is playing Wow.
Its more like .001%....
.1%
8 million players vs 6 billion people... not
23 comments of people saying they hate this game and will never play it. 23 people that are working towards lvl 61
(Slashdot won't show me the reply links on replies now... So I'm starting a new post. Firefox2/Linux, btw.)
So, is this the first time in the history of dongles that the 'security' provided by the dongle is for the USER and not the company? -boggle-
I actually think this is a great idea, IF it's optional. Example:
You buy New-RPG. You install New-RPG and plug in the dongle. At that point, you have the option to create a username and password, or use the dongle as your authentication mechanism. Later, if you want to change, you simply insert the dongle and go to the config and change it. (Needed to enable AND disable, for obvious reasons.)
If (huge IF) I ever write an online game, I'm going to seriously consider this. I tend towards 'free' games, so I'd probably make it write the authentication to a USB drive.
Thoughts: Lost/broken USB drive? Any backup means I can think of is another backdoor for a 'hacker'. (I use that term loosely.)
Copied auth data? Use the hardware ID of the USB drive as part of the auth?
Hacked executable to send any auth data they wish? Troublesome.
At any rate, I'm astonished at the thought of a dongle actually protecting the user instead of the company.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Starcraft gaming community
Audio file from Counter Strike tournament
The exact reason why I've no bought it: I need to pay for the box, /and/ it's useless unless I pay a monthly fee. That math doesnt fly, even with a "free trial" month.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Never mind, I was wrong: World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition World of Warcraft subscribers include individuals who have paid a subscription fee or have an active prepaid card to play World of Warcraft, as well as those who have purchased the game and are within their free month of access. Internet Game Room players who have accessed the game over the last thirty days are also counted as subscribers. The above definition excludes all players under free promotional subscriptions, expired or cancelled subscriptions, and expired prepaid cards. Subscribers in licensees' territories are defined along the same rules.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
0.1% of the Earth's population can't all be wrong.
Yes they can. Final Fantasy XI > WoW and you all know it.
The number of people still playing Starcraft. It's still played quite often at Lan parties I go to.
I have two employees, both WoW players, who are out today with "the flu" (of course they both picked up their copies of BC at midnight and didn't come down with their illness until 4 or 5am...). ;)
Anyone else have a similar situation?
Damn Blizz leeches. Seed damnit Seed!
...can I have all your gold?
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
I have nothing against WOW players, current or past. I have, in fact, played WOW more than any other video game, ever - more than 500 hours, which puts me in the "semi-serious" category.
But Burning Crusade doesn't really interest me at all.
I've done PvP, I've done raid instances (cleared MC a bunch of times and some BWL and AQ20), and I've explored pretty much everything that there is in the game.
We got PvP, battlegrounds, and countless minor and major functionality changes in patches 1.1-2.0. Most of the high-end instances in the game (ZG, BWL, AQ20, AQ40) were added after release, too.
So, what makes BC worth $30? We get jewelcrafting, socketed items, and flying mounts (only in the outlands). Not bad for a content patch (or even two), but an expansion that's been in the works for 2 years and that we have to pay for? That's downright weak.
There's only so much WoW you can play before the game just gets boring. Adding new content doesn't fix that - you haven't really changed the game at all. It's like adding new tracks or courses to a racing game: nice, but, at the end of the day, I'm still going to go play something else.
My wife kicked her habit too, sold her WoW account right before new years.
:P
Now, unfortunately, every friend I know still plays WoW so I have to hear about it all the time, but the house for the moment is WoW free
Guilds will catch up. Remember, WoW was missing several endgame instances that were SUPPOSED to be there from day-1 (along with honor, battlegrounds, etc) and implemented later so guilds didn't have time to conquor them, as they were added later in time.
Everquest put out 2 expansions a year, roughly, after the first couple. And the raiding guilds keep up with it.
how much longer ????
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Eve is different by being more like a strategy game where you control one of many ships. Think multiplayer Homeworld where your corp (guild) makes up the pilots of the fleet. Also, it is like paper-scissors-stone in the choice of equipment. Know your enemy, bring the right stuff and you might be able to wipe the floor with the opposition.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Everquest had paid expansions to no end...it got to the point that users felt cheated as most added content was beyond a casual players reach, but the expansion was needed because of UI and other in game improvements. If you didn't upgrade, soon you were a bane to other players because you didn't have this guild UI feature or that map. In addition, the sheer number of expansions put a financial barrier up to new blood. The number of new players dropped dramatically and the need to squeeze more from revenue of expansions increased. Also, the world became so big, that you had trouble finding people in large expanses of the game. It was a viscious cycle that resulted in my wife and myself leaving the game for good.
I understand they need to fund the creation of new content...however, I also understand that WoW is one of the largest revenue generating games in history. They have the money to pay for new content. Period.
> Sit back, release an expansion once per year, and enjoy the torrent of cash.
For the next 3-4 years, sure. WoW is probably enjoying its popularity peak around now. You remember Everquest, and how it looked like nothing would ever topple it, and how much money Sony was making off each expansion? Look at the mess Sony's in now; Everquest 2 did fairly poorly (compared to the original), Planetside was a near-disaster in MMO terms and SWG keeps getting redesigned in an attempt to appeal to people more.
MMOs don't last forever. They're going to need a sequel, and given the development lead time, had better be well into the design/possibly into actually implementing that sequel.
I still haven't reclaimed my account. Someone got a hold of it, charged it with playing cards and power leveled a bunch of characters until getting my account perma-banned for using '3rd party hacks.'
This was after I left the account dormant for a month or so. Another member of my guild had the same thing happen, and his characters were deleted as well. No account-sharing going on, and my password was not one that would be guessed, and as I don't visit any of the WoW fan-sites or things like Allahkazzam or whatever I didn't pick up any trojans. I'm thinking Blizzard has a vulnerability on their end, and the dongle would simply not solve the issue of stolen accounts.
I had WoW uninstalled, and was using a new computer so had not logged in for a bit - nor had anything on my computer to indicate that I was a WoW player when my account was hacked.
"To work for libertarianism -- to oppose the growth of government and aid the liberation of the individual -- used to be
Blizzard's authentication problems are no different from any other service on the web, from online banking to myspace.
Starcraft Ghost? Blizzard said they weren't doing Starcraft 2 as they were working on Ghost. So what's the deal?
If you run across a female character in WoW, most likely the person at the keyboard is a GIRL and not a girl.
GIRL = Guy In Real Life.
I preordered my copy of the Burning Crusade, and showed up at the store at about 10:30 (I was the 5th person there). I spoke to the fine people of Taverncast, chatted with other gamers about raid strategies, and shuffled around as we formed Alliance and Horde cliques (not really on that last one). After I got my copy at 12:01 (it payed to show up early. There were about ~200 people behind me in line) I rushed home and installed.
I must say, the process was amazingly smooth. I had no delay upgrading my account, and although the client required a patch out of the box, the patch files were already downloaded. Last weekend, my guild transferred over to the new Sisters of Elune server, and it's held up incredibly well. I played from midnight to 6 AM, and there were no crashes or lag spikes.
As for the content, my guildies and I ran through the dark portal and started questing around Hellfire peninsula. Immediately, we were greeted with the beautiful, surreal vista of Hellfire peninsula, where a massive battle is being waged between Alliance and Horde forces in uneasy truce against the Burning Legion (with hordes of demons and giant mechs called Fel Reavers). This conflict feels very dynamic and intense (partly because the front has just opened), but the scale of warfare on Hellfire peninsula really puts all the ongoing "battles" in Azeroth to shame. Within the first hour or two, you'll have the opportunity to sabotage the Legion war machine and fly an armored Gryphon (or I assume a Wyvern if you're Horde) on a bombing run (which is extremely fun). Obviously, I haven't had a chance to try out new raids or venture beyond Hellfire peninsula, but so far, Burning Crusade is gorgeous, massive, and intense. Good job, Blizzard!
Anonymous Luddite: "What do you think of the dehumanizing effects of the Internet?"
Andy Grove: "Not Much."
Some folks are already looking to the future where we probably won't see WoW on consoles, but may see it with security dongles. 0.1% of the Earth's population can't all be wrong.
Why doesn't Blizzard just make their own hardware? The ultimate dongle is a single game console. Cheap enough to capture an entirely new market, and since it's really the per month payments they want they can cut the price. Plug in your ethernet and a USB keyboard/mouse/joystick and away you go.
I know Blizzard isn't a hardware company, but this seems like an obvious "Apple"-esc move.
I'd play that in a second! And with the gobs and gobs of cash WoW is bringing in, I wouldn't be surprised to see Blizzard pumping money into yet another MMORPG. If one MMORPG hooks 8 million players, two should be able to hook 16 million, right?
Find Escorts, Strippers, Massage Parlours, Swingers
I guess that would be great if I were still interested. I got over Starcraft 6 years ago, and while I think it was the perfect RTS and had a very compelling story, I don't understand why they feel the need to come back to it now, after 10 years, for a sequel to a game with such a rabid following? I think it's impossible that it could be a better playing experience than the original or Brood War for multiplayer. Why is it that Blizzard can only seem to develop one game at a time when they certainly have the resources to do more? They have three solid gold game franchises, and two of them have languished for the better part of a decade: Starcraft for 9 years, and Diablo for 6. I can understand their commitment to quality, but it's not as if there aren't enough good developers, project managers, and producers out there to make a quality game.
Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...
Assuming that group was even a remotely representive sample, then it does not matter. When I signed onto the game shortly after picking it up, roughly (if not more than) 50% of the Blood Elf characters I saw were female (which were obviously just rolled).
Not saying there is anything wrong with this, just find it funny. :)
Why bother.
I REALLY hope the Starcraft 2 will be a classic strategy game. Not some freaking MMOG that you can only enjoy if you are willing to spend all your spare time playing it online with a bunch of other people equally willing to waste their lives away.
So take note Blizzard, here is one customer that will NOT buy starcraft 2 unless it stays true to its roots and is a real strategy game!
Sam has one liberty, which he sacrifices for one security. Can you tell me what Sam has now?
I think you understimate the software quality, the hardware requirements and the support needed to get 8 million players correctly and smoothly playing a game like WOW.
I'm an active developer and I just can't help amazing at how well WOW works and the amount of work that must be involved from development to support.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm moving in March, I shut my internet off this month and cancelled my WoW account. I'll get back into it in June or July once I'm settled in and once the BC initial release insanity has cooled down a bit. My raiding guild misses me, but I was straight up burned out.
Never give in--never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to conviction
Ah so you agree about using a dongle.... since both my bank and broker use dongles to control access to my online accounts.
Starcraft? I can't stop playing Masters of Orion 2! God I need sleep.
I thought I would write an informative post about running games in Linux...
:-D Install went perfectly in wine at 12:30am this morning. It even created a desktop shortcut pointing to "wine worldofwarcraft.exe". I'm so happy.
Then I realized I just wanted to brag.
Ubuntu Edgy
Dell Inspiron 610m
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
I think it's a good idea for banks and brokerages. Video games I'm not so sure.
The only reason Everquest did poorly is because they were messing with the cash cow. That and Blizzard has a MUCH bigger following in the PC gaming world than SOE did/does. Having released Warcraft 2 & 3, Starcraft, and Diablo 1 & 2, World of Warcraft basically followed on the heals of successful launch after successful launch... particularly with Warcraft 3. Also, people were waiting to see which game played better. I don't remember specifics of the time, but I believe WoW gained the advantage with better gameplay and graphics that knocked your socks off. Of course, Everquest 2 had excellent graphics, but the gameplay wasn't as appealing (for whatever reason) and people were starting to get fed up with SOEs treatment of players (sounds somewhat familiar of the current WoW complaints).
Geez, I'd love to see a new StarCraft release.
I've played thousands of games of SC and still do.
Almost always play Protoss, but occasionally play Terran as Marines and Tanks are just flat fun. Never did get proficient with the Zerg; don't like bugs, I guess.
It would be excellent to play at a screen resolution higher than 800x600 as well!
As for WoW...my son started playing recently and we set up a TeamSpeak server for his play group last weekend. I watched them play for a while and decided I can live without WoW.
We did Diablo I and II to DEATH so I'm at the point where hacking and slashing and trying to get to level 50, 60, 1 zillion, is mostly boring.
I am my own gestalt.
Why in earth would they want to do that, lets say they make 20 USD per unit sold. 8 million x 20 = 160 million USD!, thats a huge stack of money. Sure thats if everyone buys it, but I'm sure almost everyone will.
The thing is, Planetside at least had HUGE potential; they just totally mismanaged it. They brought its one and only expansion out 1 month after release; the max amount of devs to ever work for the game was 5 IIRC; and they have never marketed it. Yet of all their MMOs, it was definitly the most fun, and so I say it had the most potential.....its just a shame they had to waste it.
Just think about it for a second. Wouldn't you like to play an FPS game with hundreds of players? Yup. I think everyone would want to give it a try. However it was never marketed, so if you ask the average person, "Have you heard of Planetside" they will say no, but if you mention Everquest its like "Oh yeah that was cool!".....
Gee... Blizzard, a big company, makes extremely good, genre defining games. But for some bizarre reason, they choose to only work on one game at a time, focusing on that one game to make it really good.
Crazy.
You know, and this is just a wild stab in the dark... maybe the quality of their games is because they only... no... no, that's crazy talk. I mean, EA develops tons of games at once, and their quality is...
Hmm.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
On a scale from average metrosexual to Richard Simmons, I would say Blood Elf males are somewhere around Tom Cruise, bordering on 80s Depeche Mode.
Why bother.
I think they also had a fundamental problem that they were competing with the subscriptionless Battlefield 1942, and the extra players/giant game world apparently just weren't enough to keep people. Hoping we'll see something similar later on, as bandwidth gets cheaper. In the meantime, Battlefield 2142 anyone?
Your description makes me think of EA. I don't know how others view EA, but I think that company tends to make games with great potential, but then they round off the details at the end, cut a few corners, and ship it to save costs and time. My point is, when your company is focusing its energy in many directions, your visions can get dilluted, and your desire grows to ship now rather than later in an attempt to get paid now.
Sort of like: why strive for one 10/10, when you can ship two 9/10's?
You're an idiot. Take a business class.
Why does everything have to be a damn MMO... I'd rather have a nice, large, game world to enjoy on my own, or with a few select friends. I like my games as an escape from the mundane world of morons, and immature wankers, not to be another chance to have to put of with the most idiotic aspects of society. Granted I did make some friends through WoW, and did have some good times (been 6 months WoW-Sober), but the most part it was a tedious experience, both in the continual post-60 content, and the continual grinding to get there (the mere term STV still gives me nightmares), and then having to put up with idiot guilds and their politics, and doing the nightly large raid to the same 3-4 places over and over and over, with the same people, doing the same things, at the same times. The post-50 loss of character creativity ("ur a drood, HEEL!"), and ensuing clickfest. This was much worse on in PVP servers, but even sticking with RP (CC) got painful.
It got to the point where it wasn't even a game, it became a damn job. Meaning not fun.
Give me a good RTS, please. Something I can do in my free time, and actually enjoy. Hell give me a Diablo-like game, like nethack with pretty graphics, where my interactions with random wankers is optional, and my engagement in the game world is up to my schedule, and not some raiding guilds.
I'm an antisocial gamer, and PROUD! Seriously, Morrowind was more enjoyable on the whole than WoW. Sadly I can't play Oblivion, but i'm sure I would enjoy it more than WoW. It has the breadth and scope of a MMO, just without the idiots and grinding.
Give me StarCraft that is pretty much like Warcraft3, pretty, story driven, and most of all fun. Sadly I can't go install SC right now, damn mactel's lacking Classic support.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Let me start by saying that Starcraft 2 will undoubtedly be wildly popular and successful and that I'm not disputing that. My real question is whether it will be any good. A number of the developers of the original left to form ArenaNet and made Guild Wars. Warcraft 3 completely lost the dynamics of Starcraft, instead becoming a contest of who-outnumbers-who. Is there anyone left at Blizzard who can make a worthy successor to Starcraft? I fear there isn't.
It certainly can be unfair at times going against an entire team that is completely outgearing you. However, a lot of players have skill and when working as a team can easily roll teams with better gear.
There's also great fun in forcing paladins to bubble hearth. Soon the alliance will get to experience this fun.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
IMO EverQuest 2 had better graphics
But World of Warcraft had better art direction.
All the shiny in the world doesn't matter if the art itself is bland. While simpler, WoW had a much stronger visual impact.
Dongles will repeat the stupid problems of the past. We are always going to have real parallel ports aren't we (conveters have a different memory address) and macrovision are going to update their software to handle dongles more frequently than once every eight years aren't they?
There's already starcraft models in WC3. Update the graphics and I see nothing wrong with the engine itself persay as a starting point. Anyone who's programmed in it knows it only binds them to some relatively basic mechanics, which were themselves unchanged since starcraft. (Some annoying things to fix: update # of units selectable, etc)
I played WC3 yesterday and I must say, I really miss Blizzard's RTSs.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Everquest and a lot of the mmo's never lasted a week on my hdd - however I really like to play WoW. I think the reason is that WoW is actually pretty well designed. I've really only ever run into one or two bugs - neither of which affected me.
Plus I've never had to mob camp - which is (from people I've talked to on WoW) the biggest problem with Everquest. You could sit there and wait 2-3 days to kill a single mob.
With more and more content the game really becomes less linear - which I think is a good thing.
lately, blizzard hasn't seemed to have *anything* in the pipeline aside from WOW upgrades. That's somewhat understandable seeing as WOW is such a huge cash cow for them... but seriously, they should at least spin off another company to make new games if that's what needs to be done.
I've got several problems with Blizzard, mostly with their public relations.
Once upon a time, battle.net SUCKED, bad, you couldn't get on to play StarCraft half the time, or you go booted, had laggy servers if you did. Someone makes BNetD, gets a nudge nudge wink wink okay from Blizzard. They didn't have a problem with it and allows the program to exsist for quite some time. Oops! it doesn't verify authanticity and some bean counter got pissed. Sue the developers! Cease and desist! Drag the geeks to court. A friend of mine is actually an expert witness in this trial. The trials still not settled and has been dragging on for years. Every now and then he gets called back into the court room to repeat that no Blizzard code was used and that the protocol was reverse engineered.
Some fans liked StarCraft so much, they made UT Mods to make it possible to more or less play a sort-of game of StarCraft from the perspective of just one of the units. Blizzard again gave a nudge nudge wink wink without ever giving a certified okay you can do this. Let the development of this mod go on for a couple of years, then they liked the idea so much they developed StarCraft Ghost. Well, now that we're making ours, you can't make yours, same shit they pulled on BNetD.
What do they have against Linux? They can port something to Mac, which is BSD, even on Intel now. Sucessfully porting something to OSX, especially on Intel hardware should make porting over to Linux trivial. Do they have a vendetta against Linux? Atari doesn't have a problem porting most games, neither does Bioware.
I hate to admit it, but I loved playing Blizzard games. I have fond memories of hours and hours of local IPX StarCraft play after hours at work, and I also enjoyed playing both Diablo games with my old roommates. Recently I dumped my StarCraft strategy guides into the share a book bin at the coffee shop and I got rid of the actual disk years ago. I will not buy another Blizzard game until they improve their PR, and release the games on something I can play it on. As it stands, if they released StarCraft Ghost on the Gamecube tomorrow, which is technicaly something I could play it on, I wouldn't give a dime for it no matter how good it was. Since they scratched the game all together that wont happen, but others should join me and send them a message instead of just buying more copies of World of Warcraft.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Disclaimer: I am/was a RABID Starcraft/BW fan.
What Blizzard got right with Starcraft was BALANCE. Nearly all RTSes released before (and since, even) have had factions with generally the same units, a few faction-specific units, and a few faction-specific powers/traits. The Starcraft races were designed from the ground up to be DIFFERENT. For example:
Hit point regeneration? Terrans could repair using SCVs. (If using multiple SCVs, a unit could be brought to full health VERY quickly.) Their biological units were SOL until Brood War came out, which gave medics a healing power.
Zerg slowly regenerated HP over time until they reached full health.
Protoss had shields that regenerated quickly (and could be recharged via a special structure), but no way to repair mechanical units or heal biologicals (unless they managed to cast mind control on a Terran medic.)
Stealth? A few Terran units had the option to cloak for a limited time (it drained energy.)
Zerg (ground) units had the ability to burrow indefinitely, though only one had the ability to attack while burrowed and none had the ability to move while burrowed.
A few Protoss units were cloaked, and the arbiter automatically cloaked any nearby Protoss unit. Protoss cloaking was always free, permanent (unless an arbiter is destroyed), and did not affect movement or attack abilities.
Peons? Terrans had SCVs. They were the quickest resource gatherers and the best fighters. It took time for them to build structures.
Protoss had probes. They could build structures like crazy (summoning took time, but the probe only required a fraction of a second to start the process.)
Zerg had drones. They were physically transformed into structures, destroying them in the process.
Uber-attack unit? Terran had battle cruisers (flying). Good overall performance; able to respond to threats quickly (including scourge), special Yamatto cannon to take out powerful units or structures from afar. Slow movement.
Zerg had the Ultralisk and (to a lesser extent) the guardian (flying.) The Ultralisk was the strongest, toughest ground unit in the game, but couldn't attack air units. The guardian had great range, but was similarly limited to ground targets.
Protoss had the carrier (flying). FANTASTIC damage potential, but they were very slow to build and (unlike battle cruisers) could not respond to threats (like the scourge) quickly.
You get the idea. The point is, there was not a SINGLE unit that the three factions shared in common--not even a single unit or power that was truly similar (reaver vs. a siege tank, for instance--superficially similar, but there are SO many differences that their strategies are fundamentally different.) Yet, the three sides are (more or less) balanced. THAT was Blizzard's gift to the RTS world, and what a wondrous gift it was (from what I saw, Warcraft 3 pulled off the same magical balancing act--I just never really got into it. FYI, the RPG hero system was NOT revolutionary--the Warlords: Battlecry series did it three years earlier--arguably, they did it better.)
BUT... balance is not everything. Sadly, VERY sadly, the *craft series have always lagged far behind when it came to unit control. I am SO damn sick of having a unit run off on its own to take on an entire army by itself. What's the alternative? Why, you tell the unit to "hold position", which means it will stand perfectly still and do nothing while its buddies are slaughtered. In most other RTSes, it's as simple as putting a unit in "defensive" mode and your units will never do either of these idiotic behaviors. Formations aren't quite as important, but they're still pretty handy. There's also a behavior in Warcraft 3 that I found completely unacceptable--computer-controlled units would automatically target the units that had the least hit points, but YOUR units would have to be manually told to attack a certain unit. This I regard as "cheating", because it was completely impossible to keep up t
I for one am passing this expansion up for the moment. $40 seems a bit pricey for what is currently going to be grind, gank, get ganked, repeat just in new areas and dungeons I probably won't see unless I devote every extra bit of time I have to a raiding guild. Don't get me wrong I'll pick this up eventually, but only after the storm clouds have cleared and the price comes down.
For now RL > WoW...!
The funny thing is that there are plenty of free, independently-owned, player-run mass multiplayer games with no advertising... too bad all these MMORPG kids don't realize they can get a very similar online experience (with a much more stable community) without paying for expansions and monthly fees.
My wife and I both play WoW and we eagerly marched into the local game hut and picked up a copy. The game is of course as awesome as we have come to expect from blizzard. Unfortunately, we only purchased one copy. As I'm sure most of you know, Blizzard is requiring you purchase a retail box in order to get an account key. This leaves those of us who have more than one account purchasing a second (or sometimes third) retail box in order for all of us to be able to play the expansion. In our case that means 2 boxes, 8 cd's, etc... Why didn't Blizzard simply allow us to purchase one retail box and apropriate keys via the internet? They have been able to do it since I've been playing the original. It just seems to me that this is simply a wastefull practice. We should be able to buy only one box and additional keys, and limit the amount of extra garbage we introduce to the environment.
Seriously, is it supposed to look like that?
Maybe they should never have a sequel, just keep releasing expansion packs. Upgrade the graphics, keep upping the level cap. It's hard to see people stopping if content like this continues to be added.
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
If a trojan can capture a password, what keeps it from accessing the dongle and capturing its hash?
I am behind a content filter, can someone please post the article about starcraft on here?
Thanks!