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Can Blizzard Top StarCraft?
MSNBC is running an interview with Blizzard designer Rob Pardo discussing a number of facets of the upcoming StarCraft II. Informational tidbits include the fact that, unsurprisingly, the game won't be released this year, and some background on the game's long development cycle. "Penny Arcade figured it out! We keep games under code names and we teach developers to refer to games by their code name. And we're just really careful about talking about the game internally. We don't bring external folks through unannounced product areas. But I think even I'm surprised that we were able to keep it under wraps all the way to the end."
No, the hype machine is to great for star craft 2 to ever live up to. Not saying it won't be good just well...hype ruins things.
Short answer: "yes" with an "if"
Long answer: "no" with a "but"
.. can Blizzard top Wow?
Starcraft sold a ton of copies, but it is now a moneysink. It is free to play on Battle.Net and not many new copies are being sold. They are continuously losing money from a game created many many years ago.
The $15/month from a MMO cannot be understated. The decision to make a non-MMO game after the success of WoW is very puzzling.
At least it's not EA. Or we'd get SC1 in 1600x1200 with true 3D, zooming and surround sound. But since it's not, it's actually quite possible we get a totally new game.
What made SC1 was the perfect balance. Sure, it took a few patches, but essentially, it was balanced to the extreme. I attribute my inability to win as a Protoss more to my inability to play the game well rather than a balance issue (I get my ass whipped regularely by other people playing Protoss... there's a reason why you rarely see me at those tournament finals, ya know...), if they manage to get SC2 well balanced again, it's a seller.
Let's face it, people. After the "ohhh shiny" effect wears off, which is usually after a month tops, what's left is whether the game is fun to play or not. And fun in a multiplayer RTS game hangs mostly on game balance while at the same time offering actually different sides with different units (hello Supreme Commander...), and strategies that you have to adapt to the side you play, and the side you play against. And SC1 had that down to the point.
My guess is that the success, especially the long time success, of SC2 hang on balance. Not graphics, not sound, not handling, not interface (as long as they don't overload it and make it unplayable). Balance or not balance will be the decider that tips the balance in favor or against SC2.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
For all the people who played and loved Starcraft, they'll be comparing Starcraft 2 against the feelings they got playing Starcraft ten years ago, colored by the fact that after ten years its really easy to remember things more fondly then how you felt about them originally.
They could make the best RTS on the market, and it still wouldn't "top" Starcraft in the eyes of many of the fans. Its an impossible goal, because there is no real way to judge it.
Hopefully they'll just focus on trying to make a good game in the spirit of Starcraft. If they can do that, I'll be happy.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I hope they make a decent single player campaign. It almost feels like a formula - 7 missions per race, with just unlocking the highest tech at the very last mission, and the first missions more or less a trainer. I do enjoy multi player, but so many of the games feel like they are purposely cut short to sell an expansion pack. RTS games seem to get shorter and shorter. Just finished Supreme Commander, and compared to its earlier incarnation of Total Annihilation, it felt really short. (even with the 2+ hour expanding map missions) Still - glad to have an update to what I rank as one of my favorite games!
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
they focus on multiplay mainly these days... but yeah, I'd like to see a campaign as good as starcraft's if possible, as that's a big part of what drew people in... Warcraft by comparison has an incredibly corny plot. I couldn't stand to play through the frozen throne campaign. I felt like I was torturing myself.
Starcraft by comparison was much more about the single player campaign. They ended up making the multiplay pretty good, but you will notice that there are tons of units that are totally useless in multiplayer mode (infected command center? light and dark archons? zerg queen?). Multi play in pretty much every serious game became mostly about being really good at producing lots of low level units really quickly really early. Later in the game someone *might* mass battlecruisers or carriers if it's BGH.
Personally, I'm hoping they're trim the units (it looks like they've already done that actually) and make nukes more useful. Nukes were one of the most fun things in SC, but also one of the most impractical (you could make it work... but there was almost always a better strat.). Nukes should be a little less powerful, but much easier to obtain. At the very least I don't want to have to built extra command centers...