Blizzard Confirms New Product, May Be Starcraft 2

darkhitman writes "According to a Kotaku post yesterday, Blizzard has confirmed that they'll announce a new product at their World Wide Invitation in Korea next month. The statement issued by Blizzard verified that they 'do intend to announce a new product [...] next month" and "plan to revisit [Starcraft] at some point in the future,' but did not confirm the rumor that the new game would be Starcraft 2 — but we can certainly hope."

Comments

Blizzard announces...

[Mr. Flibble]

Blizzard announces World of Starcraft... And a feeling as if a million nerds cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

Re:Blizzard announces...

[Wildclaw]

Personally I am of a completly different opinion.

Graphic wise, Starcraft was far superior to TA. Good 2d art is much better than simple 3d art. I can still look at Starcraft today and enjoy the graphics. It may be outdated, pixel-wise, but it is still art. TA however has aged significantly.

The custom AI was indeed a weak point of starcraft, but starcraft single player still had its charms with its better campaigns. Custom single player games was interesting also, mainly to see how many AIs you could defeat. You can't claim to have mastered starcraft single player until you have won 1vs7 games with all three races. Terran being the easiest (Bunkers+Siegetanks), protoss medium difficult (photon cannons+shield batteries and a good map) and zerg the toughest. (Quick expansion and tech to Guardians on a map with close expansion and long travel paths). There is no question however, that multiplayer was where Starcraft shined.

As for the better game. Starcraft and TA had completly different focus. TA was an army management game with the focus on strategy, and it did very well at that. Throwing large armies back and forth. Starcraft on the other hand had a few specific things that made it unique among RTS:s, then and now. This is why I consider it the best RTS of all times. These special attributes being

* 3 unique, balanced races. Most RTS games have some difference between the different sides, but Starcraft is to date the only game that I know off that pulled it off that well. The actual mindset changes when switching races. You can actually feel the swarm mentality when playing zerg, or the ability to hold ground as terrans, or the pure power of protoss units.

* Every single unit type matters from start to end. There isn't a single unit in Starcraft that becomes outdated as the game progresses. When it comes to dealing out pure damage, the basic units are the most cost efficent, while more advanced units are used to provide specific advantages. (such as attack range, area effects, health, cloak and flying abilities)

The only problem I found with Starcraft multiplayer was the insistance to play on the fastest game speed. Fastest game speed is simply to fast unless you are a pro player with incredible reflexes. I have always wished that RTS games would include something like a Max Payne style time slower where any player could slow down the game for a certain amount of time (the ability itself recharging over time). It would allow for a quick initial phase of the game, while still providing ample opportunity to use more complex tactics in the heat of battle.

It's just like running for president

[ween14]

Blizzard Announcement: "We will be having an announcement soon announcing when we will have an announcement about when we will announce a new product."

This is just in!

[scenestar]

A certain company is Releasing "FOO" somewhere set to Release at a yet uncertain date.

No details are as of yet released, but rumour has it that it *might* be the highly anticipated s equal to their previous bestseller "BAR"

More details at eleven.

Not far from the truth.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://blizzard.com/jobopp/

Job Update 4/26/07
New Position - Lead Engine Programmer Next-Gen MMO

Re:Not far from the truth.

[Aereus]

Blizzard telling us that they are announcing a new game in *South Korea* next month almost guarantees that it is Starcraft-related IMHO. Starcraft is/was absolutely huge in Korea, so I can't see them choosing that spot for an announcement for anything else. A Starcraft MMO also makes good market sense right now, even if I would also love to see a new Starcraft RTS. There has been a distinct lack of quality mainstream Scifi MMOs so far. Starcraft could fit into that area quite nicely -- and by the time the game was ready for release, WoW would also be around its 5th anniversary.

Re:Not far from the truth.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, the logical thing to do is pull a Warcraft 3. Announce Starcraft 2 in Korea, with a new 3D engine. Use this release to lay additional groundwork (in particular, any new story elements needed to create an MMO from it), while beginning serious work on the implementation of the MMO. Then release an expansion to the RTS 1-2 years later, then announce the MMO 1-2 years later, and release 1-2 years later.

That way, you get the franchise revitalized and updated, making the expected shedloads of money, while also setting things up for the MMO to follow. And if they really are working on Ghost in-house, then if the MMO is delayed, there's another entry in the Starcraft franchise to keep interest in the brand up.

Korea? Bet it's Starcraft-related

[rsborg]

Since Korea is the worldwide capitol of Starcraft players.

Also it's not a total surprise given the hints that Blizzard has been putting out (validity of "hints" left as an exercise to reader).

Another expansion pack

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet they'll introduce the new "World of Starcraft" with an expansion pack for WoW. Just when a new guild is about to take down Kel'Thuzad for the first time, and a voice will come out of no-where and announce "Nuclear Launch Detected".

Re:WoW/WoS?

[Lord_Breetai]

I, for one, welcome our new starcrafting overlords!

Spawn more overlords!

Starcraft II

[Frozen Void]

Starcraft could be the perfect strategy game if it was more editable and several fixes were applied.
(applies to Battle.net itself too)
The map editor sucks(by capabilities,everyone uses Starforge).
Games start with delay of 5 seconds.
Ladder was so prone to abuse blizzard closed it on all gateways.
When someone's client doesn't respond,game DOES NOT drop him,but instead freezees the game,
shows a non-modal timeout screen,for 40 seconds and then at 0:00 it could just stop if the player uses
the very popular lag hack.
Maphack and other exploits are not fixed.Maphack gives an enormous advantage in Starcraft.
Dragoon(and several other units) AI dances around when used with obstacles.
Pairs of units start dancing when they can't decide the right of way(heading towards each other).
All channels on battle.net with exception of 20-30 are not shown in channel list(it probably a crude anti-spam measure blizzard "invented").
The ability to save games is limited to host(unlike replays).
The random element of 70% chance firing to higher ground does not belong in this game.
When connecting to battle.net client opens 7-10 extra connections to the same server,and closes them only after several minutes pass.
Friendlists are limited to 20.
ignore lists are stored server side and reset each time you login.
Ums Map preview is disabled for some reason.
Maps in singleplayer list are limited to 1024 IIRC,beyond that it just doesn't displays them (batlle.net list works fine).
Spam bots which spam each 60 seconds are never banned and players who speak too fast are kicked out from the server.
Replays must be passworded games only.
The observer glitch:when observer is exactly on center of missile turret, missile turret stops firing and just freezes.
You need to place map revealers and disable fog of war,but cannot make the map be visible 100% in UMS without this.
Unit range,cooldown,AI etc are not modifiable by editor.
lack of math operations and variables in editor.
Spells/abilities are not modifiable and cannot be cast by triggers with exception of few.
Direct coordinates and locations are not supported.

the list goes on and on.

Can Starcraft 2 ever meet expactations?

[Hackie_Chan]

Scenario A) The game will not follow the exact same formula, instead taking the original and building upon it. Substantial changes to game play and design are bound, implementing common features available in modern RTS games.

People will complain that Starcraft 2 is too different from the original.

Scenario B) The game is a minimalist upgrade. Basically being the original but in 3D, with the intention of not trying to break a tried and true formula.

People will complain that Starcraft 2 is too similar to the original (see reception of Command and Conquer 3).

Re:What this proves...

[themildassassin]

Why paraphrase when you can just copy and post the quote?
"We do intend to announce a new product at the Worldwide Invitational next month in Korea, and we appreciate the enthusiasm and interest in getting an advance look at what that will be, but players will have to wait until May 19th to find out more. Also, we have a very strong connection with the characters and settings of StarCraft, and we do plan to revisit that universe at some point in the future, but we don't have anything new to announce in that regard at present."

Now let me paraphrase, the first part is saying "We have a secret.", the second part is saying "and we really like Starcraft.", and the last part, "but we can't tell you anything yet."

I think you are missing something or I am. This is ambiguous PR talk, but nowhere does it state that they are defiantly not going to do Starcraft, in fact they seem to be suggesting that it is in fact a Starcraft game, or they are a bunch of serious teases.

Also, "fanboi"? Is your disdain of the English language so great that you need to strike out at all of us like that?

Re:WoW/WoS?

[Dachannien]

Spawn more overlords!

We require more minerals.

No!! Please don't so this

[twigles]

I just kicked the WoW habit a couple months ago!

I've been Blizzard's bitch since 1994 and it sucks. I feel like Sharon Stone in Casino....