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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."

9 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. Blizzard announces... by Mr.+Flibble · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --
    Try to hack my 31337 firewall!
  2. Not far from the truth. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://blizzard.com/jobopp/

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

    1. Re:Not far from the truth. by Aereus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Not far from the truth. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

  3. Another expansion pack by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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".

  4. Re:WoW/WoS? by Lord_Breetai · · Score: 5, Funny

    I, for one, welcome our new starcrafting overlords!

    Spawn more overlords!

    --
    "You are only young once, but you can be immature forever." -www.animemusicvideos.org
  5. Starcraft II by Frozen+Void · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  6. Can Starcraft 2 ever meet expactations? by Hackie_Chan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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).

    --

    What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
  7. Re:What this proves... by themildassassin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?