StarCraft, Nothing But StarCraft

Now that the news has been out for a few days and game journalists have had a chance to chat with the folks at Blizzard, there are a number of new stories detailing parts of the StarCraft II world. A massive press briefing about the game fills in a few more details on the game; only three factions, no new races, the game is built with competitive play in mind, and will run on both XP and Vista. For more nitty-gritty elements, the company held panel discussions on the art design and gameplay elements of the upcoming game. Video from the event is now widely available as well; check out the official trailer, some example gameplay, or the epic 22-minute long developer walkthrough.

Comments

GOML

[MeanderingMind]

Too many young'ns with Apple Powerbooks these days.

Back in the day if you wanted a game on your Mac you had very few options. Blizzard, Bungie, Maxis, Broderbund and MacSoft were about it. If you had a Mac back then and gamed you knew these names.

Even if a game was ported to the Mac by some other developer, it was usually horrendously buggy, slow, and you could only play with other Mac players (I'm looking at you Age of Kings).

These facts didn't really begin to change until the iMacs came out and Macs became "cool", or at least popular after some fashion. Of course, it sort of went hand in hand with the decline of PC gaming.

Anyway, get off my lawn.

My only request(s)...

[mattgreen]

This isn't some lame complaint about how it doesn't run on an OS that nobody runs.

I hope that Blizzard quits defining 'skill' as how fast a player can click, especially when we're using the mouse to play. I don't mean to overstate this - the better player is going to win, usually. But it is very telling that pro SC1 players measure clicks per second. And while it is 'athletic' in one sense, I am not fond of risking carpal tunnel syndrome just so I can be good at a computer game.

The most glaring aspect of this is in the limitation of units that can be selected at once. If you watch the gameplay videos, there are a huge number of zerglings that attack simultaneously. How backwards is it that although that is feasible in Starcraft (probably not to that scale) it is a huge pain in the ass? In order to do it you need to separate them out into groups of 12, and assign them to number keys along the top. To attack, you'd hit the 1 key, then hit a, and click behind the attack point. Now, you need to repeat that step for every group. The first group will get there slightly before the others because they have a head start, which is inefficient if you're trying to swarm the enemy. The natural thing would be to double click on the zerglings, and have them ALL be selected at once. I'm glad to see that Rob Pardo is working on SC2, but I know he has strong feelings on this sort of thing. I can't recall the exact reason, but I believe the cap is in SC1 for the purpose of 'encouraging smaller battles.' Sorry, but if they've played it at all, it just doesn't work that way. People get into bigass battles all the time, that is half the fun of SC1. And it is aggravating to know that the UI doesn't scale with the scope of battles. Oftentimes, you don't have control over how big the battle gets.

I want to focus on the action, not the fifty inane things needed to sustain the action. I understand and appreciate that some of it has to happen, but it can be rather unpleasant sometimes. One example of this is building units. In particular, you should be able to build multiple unit production buildings, issuing build requests and they are load-balanced between the two, i.e. if I want two marines, and I have two barracks, I should be able to select both barracks, and ask for two marines. Both barracks would build one simultaneously. Currently, the Blizzard games allow you to queue, but do not load-balance in this way. If you wanted to do what I just described, you need to select each building individually. More clicks, more thought needed to accomplish a common goal. Another example is unit queuing. This is fairly common among RTS games now, but it is a shame that the Blizzard games effectively penalize you for using it. I say this because they deduct the unit cost when you queue the unit - not when the unit starts being built. For the period of time between the queue and the unit being built, you have fewer resources available to expend in the event of an emergency. (The interesting thing is you are not charged for upkeep of the queued unit until it starts production.) The hyperactive player who can remember to build units right when they come out does not suffer from having less available resources. In the event of a financial emergency, they can divert resources without needing to stop the queue of units.

Nevertheless, I have high hopes for this game, and will probably upgrade my PC to play.

Re:My only request(s)...

[mattgreen]

I am inexperienced. I'd love to enjoy the game in all its technical details, but it is such a pain in the ass to play. You do not need to tell me what 'pro' players do. Of course they play at maximum efficiency. The thing is, I don't want to be 'good' at precision clicking on units, I want to be good at the actual game portion of it.

You point out the group limit isn't a hindrance because there is a workaround. Sounds more like a tacit admission that it is artificial. Alt-clicking does not completely solve the problem, you are still issuing multiple commands when one would suffice. In regard to load balancing, it'd be only among the buildings currently selected. You do not want to limit the options available to a player or force them to work in a certain way. Having it automatically work on all buildings of a certain type would be asinine. I am no stranger to hotkeying the buildings, or placing them properly. I just find the UI shortcuts provided by Blizzard to be incapable of handling the sheer number of disparate tasks that need to be done to play Starcraft at any sort of decent level.

I am not sure how this is making it a less competitive game. The more the UI aids the user in doing tedious things, the more fun it is to play. This has nothing to do with dumbing down the game. Like I said earlier, I won't weep at all if the excessive mouse skills are no longer mandatory to play. I already use the mouse too much during the day at my tech job.

Re:My only request(s)...

[toad3k]

I have to agree with the original poster. I played for awhile and was fairly good. Nonetheless these difficulties in unit training, queuing, and unit selecting were mostly not intended. No one at blizzard said, "Hey, lets substitute in some bad UI design that a more seasoned player can overcome to beat his opponents."

These tricks you've learned are crutches. You are apparently good at using crutches. You like them because you are better at using crutches than the average player, but don't think for a minute that these crutches are part of the game or that they enhance game play in the least.

I would like to see resources stay unused until unit starts building. Ability to make command centers rally their scvs on resources instead of sitting there. To select multiple buildings at once and hotkey them and use them to train. To be able to queue future commands on units that are in the process of building something. To research upgrades one after another in order. To allow infinite unit selection (already done). To queue units that aren't yet available while an advanced structure is building or upgrading. An easier way to select similar units that are mixed in a big blob of different units. A defend as well as a follow command. None of these is game breaking, but they allow you to get the base building done and forget about it for a couple minutes to manage combat or expansion.

I do not want scripting capability that some people are stupidly advocating. Anything that could be done in the background besides simple key rearrangement would be detrimental to barrier to entry and professional play. I also don't want it to start anticipating things like building overlords when it thinks you need them.

Re:Who cares about XP and Vista?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I have to wonder why Blizzard consistently releases their titles for Mac.

Money.

I buy all their games as a result, but what's their motivation?

Money.

(surely the sales are far far lower).

Sales are lower? Lower than what, the number of potential buyers if they don't support the Mac?

Do you have any doubt that Startcraft 2 will be among the top 20 titles of the year? Blizzard doesn't have any doubt. Now take a look at the top 20 titles of 2006. How many of them currently offer a Mac version? Gee, pretty much all of them do. Why do you suppose that is? Maybe because it is profitable?

The real question is "why wouldn't a develop make a Mac version?" The answer is, it costs sore up front to build nice, portable code. If the initial investment is a big concern and you don't know if there will be a payoff, it sometimes makes sense to cut corners and develop just for DirectX+Windows. Then, if your game is a flop, you've lost less money. If your game is a success, you can shell out to port the code. The thing is, this latter method, costs more money overall than just writing portable code. Thus, any company that is sure their game will be successful (Blizzard, Id, etc.) tend to plan for the Mac version from the onset. There are a few exceptions to this rule, almost all of whom are owned by Microsoft.