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Starcraft 2 To Be a Trilogy
The Starcraft 2 gameplay panel was an eventful one at Blizzcon today. The developers faced an obstacle when designing the game; the plans they had were just too massive to implement in a single game on anything approaching a reasonable timeline. Their solution was to divide the game up into three separate, stand-alone titles: Terran: Wings of Libery, Zerg: Heart of the Swarm, and Protoss: Legacy of the Void. Read on for further details.
Each campaign will have on the order of 26-30 missions. The path players take through the missions can vary — the storyline branches frequently — but they will end in the same place. The games will run alongside each other; there will not be cliffhanger endings leading from one to another, and each game will focus on a different part of the story. The Terran campaign will focus on Jim Raynor, and the Zerg campaign will be all about Kerrigan. Multiplayer functionality will be in place for all three races from the start.
I assume the Protoss game will be about Zeratul. Maybe there will be some Xel'Naga backstory.
-- $SIGNATURE
i feel some power...overwhelming?
WÌÌfÍ--ÍSÌÒÍ...Í...ÌHÌÍfÍÍÍ--ÍÍÍ
You mean like Sing-along titles?
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The distinct disadvantage of this, of course, is if they try to stagger the releases of this (easier for development, spread out profits, add in new bug fixes and balances with each release), you might not get to play your favourite race's campaign for quite a while.
On the other hand, if they release it all at once, then you have a huge amount of (awesome) content to play with, but it'll likely feel like they've charged you more than is reasonable for content that should all be in one package.
So does that mean that we get to pay $39.99 three times to get to play the entire game instead of a one-time fee of $49.99?
Sign me up!
I just wish I could beat you over the head with the SUMMARY that you didn't even bother to read before blasting off a comment.
Go back to youtube
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
That is what "Multiplayer functionality will be in place for all three races from the start. " seems to imply. Come on, there's not even an article. Is the summary too much to read? (and no, i'm not new here. My UID is 666, so there!)
"We at Blizzard Entertainment value you, the wallet mounted on the back of an entranced magpie. As such, we wanted to ensure that StarCraft 2 was the highest quality money sink possible, while still extracting money from you soon. As such, it will be released in installments for the low, low price of $59.99 each. Naturally, each new installment will break multiplayer with previous ones. We hope you enjoy playing our games as much as we enjoy taking your money!"
Am I the only one who sees this as nothing more than an attempt to sell 3x as many retail boxes?
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
Multiplayer functionality will be in place for all three races from the start.
We've gone from RTFA to RTFS, now. Do people on /. actually read anything?
that bitch had it coming for 10 years now.
.... you know
ill give her a lesson on
Read radical news here
There IS no UID 666. You must be new here...
My sig can beat up your sig.
I don't think there's enough Blizzard news on Slashdot...I also find it interesting that I see so many World of Warcraft advertisements on slashdot pages...
Those jackholes are going to make me shell out 150 to 200 dollars for this game, aren't they?
God, Blizzard is evil!
[...] they really do need most customers to buy the whole game for $150 a pop.
Where did it say that they were charging full price for each one? For all we know, they could charge $50 for the first game, and $20 for each "expansion" campaign you buy (or some other form of arbitrary numbers).
each installment is yours for $65 or grab the extended super amazing battle.net chest gold version for $200 with a collectors mouse pad and protoss boxers*
* for a limited time only.
i was going to make some kind of contextual reply to your comment, but i just couldn't bring myself to read it.
i only read the story tags.
Celebrity worship is a poor substitute for Deity worship and costs more to boot.
There IS no UID 666. You must be new here...
Actually, ACs internally are uid 666, they just don't display.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
For those of you whining about "whaaaa 300% markup"..
Each campaign has 36 missions. That's more than the original Starcraft. Further, the campaign will be branched (ie, you'll have choices that actually effect what happens, which missions are selected, what happens). It might also feature co-op multiplayer, not sure on that one yet.
Or, what they announced, was a game called Starcraft II and the following two expansions to it. You know that's how it'll work. They won't just ship new missions and charge you retail for it, it will feature new units, balance, etc.
Starcraft was released, people were happy. Brood War was released, and people didn't whine about Blizzard "ripping them off" because hey, this expansion also had content.
Starcraft II is exactly the same, and yet, people are whining now...? Am I missing something?
Holy crap you could not be more wrong. Sarah Palin is the biggest idiot to ever appear on TV.
We've gone from RTFA to RTFS, now.
Do people on /. actually read anything?
I read your comment. I can has cookie?
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
Soon there will be RTFHeadline flames.
Well, it's all a big ripoff of Warhammer 40k, so they might as well take even more inspiration from Games Workshop by soaking their loyal customers for triple damage in the wallet.
This is perhaps the one thing I really didn't like about DoW. The original release only had the Space Marine campaign. Looks to be the same for SC2.
I have intentionally stayed the hell away from anything about the game in the press. I loved SC1 and _still_ play it. Does anyone know if there will be Linux support this time around? I haven't had a box running Windows for many, many years. I don't want to have to buy Cedega on top of it, but I guess I may have to.
Also, is there a release date yet?
I ask here because I DON'T want to go to the website and get everything spoiled before I even get the game.:(
But this is slashdot. A slashdoter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber!
Now that Blizzcon is in full swing, I can look forward to every announcement by blizzard being slashdotted and front paged for the next few days. . . .
They could also be giving them away for free.
To third world children.
With their free Blizzard-sponsored OLPC.
And a lollipop.
Chery flavor.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I have not seen any mention of spawn copies which helped to make Starcraft so popular at lan game events. With one legit copy could legally allow several others to also join the game. My understanding was that they were not going to return to this model for Starcraft 2.
Perhaps this trilogy system is going to cancel this out. With only needing the disc of one of the versions to play in multilayer. Depending on the if these sub-versions are separate and stand alone, or if they're merely expansion packs that is.
I didn't even read your f**king comment.
It's a naked grab for cash.
What a freakin' great idea for a gameshow!
"..the plans they had were just too massive to implement in a single game on anything approaching a reasonable timeline."
What happened to Operation CWAL?
Way to ruin a perfectly good thread.
Nuclear engineers build weapons. Civil engineers build targets.
Tags are too verbose for me. I only look at the topic picture.
I totally agree with your comment.
I do not see how "no cliffhangers" logically leads to "simultaneous release".
If you remember Starcraft 1 at all, you should see how easily the game could be broken up like this, and yet how badly is would affect the story telling to force it into cliffhangers. Part of what was great about StarCraft 1 was how the different plot lines wrapped together.
blizzcon starcraft starcraft2 games rts story
There are 5 other tags for you to read. Why limit yourself to the last one?
What I don't understand is, if each game is going to include the full multiplayer component (the primary draw for Starcraft), that means the last two titles are just single player missions that won't include new units or buildings. Doesn't that just make them mission packs that shouldn't cost more than $15-20?
I just don't understand why they would part out the least wanted aspect of the game as if it's the most important. Multiplayer is the primary feature people are waiting for.
Agreed, this Ogre/Joystick looks crap, i prefer the Telephone/Blackboard.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Let's face it, video game pricing hasn't really kept up with the cost of making games. I'm happy to acknowledge that.
Ok, reasoning seems a little odd here. If a movie that just came out were to have cost Millions or even Billions more than a movie that came out yesterday, it would then be 'ok' to charge 3x the price to see it? If the development of a movie or game costs X amounts of dollars and it isn't scrapped then the volume of sales at current market price should damn well be worth the risk. There are a few exceptions that go above the current market price, and those in themselves are gambles, you had better be sure that it's a big hit.
As you said it's just a money grab, no excuses.
I say don't drink and drive, you might spill your drink. Before you get behind the wheel just stop and think.
I didn't read my comment either.
I haven't really been into RTSs since Starcraft 1, and I was kind of looking forward to coming back. But this really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
But this really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
Oh don't worry about that. That's just Blizzard's awesomesauce. It's a bit salty, but really, what isn't these days?
The day Blizzard start to make their games for Linux I will become interested, otherwise I wont.
to fit all this content on one DVD-ROM... If only there was a way to ship 2 DVD-ROMs. But alas it's not possible. We'll just have to sell the other one for another $50.
Part of the inherent coolness of StarCraft was that you got to experience all three races with very three different play mechanisms across the game.
Now they want to make each campaign a separate game? It just doesn't sound nearly as interesting to me, no matter how big the campaigns are or what sort of "metagame" they add to it. It won't cover for the fact that, conceptually, it still feels like a step down.
Obviously, the world isn't coming to an end here - but I wonder if Blizzard's near perpetual success is leading to a bit of disconnect here with the fans. When you can do no wrong for so long, you might start to believe that you can do no wrong even when you're doing wrong.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
you guys are complaining about some an awful lot for something you really know very little about. from the sounds of it, it will play as 3 separate games that come together on b.net for the full exp, and lets face it, online play is the only thing that matters.
and you can't really say it's a marketing gimmick, i really may just be that huge of a game, and in order to offset the cost of a onetime purchase, they release in 3 parts. remember games like phantasmagora that came out on 7 discs? diablo 2 came out with 3 seperate disc's for installation and blizz likes to push things, if you can't fit it one dvd-rom what do you expect them to do, alienate it's customer base by releasing them on blu-ray discs requiring you to buy a blu-ray drive?
you guys are making to big of a deal about something that i entirely based on an assumption
"Ok, reasoning seems a little odd here. If a movie that just came out were to have cost Millions or even Billions more than a movie that came out yesterday, it would then be 'ok' to charge 3x the price to see it? If the development of a movie or game costs X amounts of dollars and it isn't scrapped then the volume of sales at current market price should damn well be worth the risk. There are a few exceptions that go above the current market price, and those in themselves are gambles, you had better be sure that it's a big hit.
As you said it's just a money grab, no excuses."
since you brought in movies we'll start there.
let's get things clear here, you saw the blair witch project movie, right? the one done for $2000 with only one paid actress that got $500? right? that is an example of how cheaply a movie can be made, the same director he got what millions to produce blair witch 2? and nobody saw that one right, it sucked, it bombed, the guy couldn't handle the money and make a decent movie. right, the point being, making something worth watching isn't just throwing money at it. somethings should only be done once.
and how much money does hollywood spend on a big movie? millions, tons of money, and yet at one point in time it cost little more than actor salaries, and options on the screenplay. the cost of producing movies has gone up as long as you rely on technology instead of storyline, and the same thing is happening with games. I have a wonderful laptop that i bought happily in 1997, I paid $1,199 for it, you know what? that system can run a few basic games, like civilization 1, wolfenstein 3-d etc, i mean come on it's a pentium 120 mhz with the F00F bug, and 48 megabytes of ram, and a small hard drive, and a floppy, no cd-rom. the types of games that were huge in 1995 cost almost nothing to code and develop and yet some of them had wonderful game play, all while fitting on a few 1.44 mb floppy diskettes. but i tell you what, nobody buys simple games. if i coded a game that could run on a pentium 120 nobody would buy it. they might go to a website with ads to play it, but they wouldn't buy it.
and now blockbuster video games are running into a major problem, they're running into the hollywood effect. it takes a game with the latest sound and graphic capabilities, to woo customers into initial purchase, and yet most games are going to be below the satisfaction level for them to tell all their friends "you gotta get this game and play me online dude!" this is really really driving up the cost of developing game engines, and game content. at some point someone has to wake up and realize, if games get any more expensive to make, nobody is going to make enough money, and the market will collapse. it already has, to a certain point. coding game engines that require 1600 pixel processing units, just doesn't offer the ROI especially in a down economy.
and yet, if someone makes a game like crysis that requires 1600 pixel processing units to run 'at max' settings, there are people, comparing screen shots of crysis running on a 1600 pixel processing unit setup, vs 'our game engine' that maybe runs fine on a card with 32 pixel processing units, and instantly saying 'that our game engine game sucks, look at how pretty crysis is with a $4,000 alienware* dude'. it's a tough job trying to make a game engine and market it, and still make money, especially in an economy where people are going to rent or warez, instead of buying.
to tie this all together, to a certain point, it's easier to 'make a prettier' game than anyone else, or a better special effects blockbuster on hollywood, than it is to really come across a storyline and tell it just right, and release it at the right time, to get everyone telling their friend to go see this movie. it doesn't cost a lot of money to make a really good movie, and i know a lot of people who play sudoku, which is the simplest popular game i can think of... it doesn't take $$$ to make a winning game concept or a winning movie concept, but
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
I can see the conversation now at Blizzard's headquarters:
Bean counter: "Hey, we're making money hand over fist with World of Warcraft! How can you justify diverting money into an expensive new project without subscriptions?"
Developer: "We could put subscriptions into multiplayer."
Bean counter: "No, that could take away from our golden cash cow."
Developer: "We... could split the single player into three map packs and charge for all three?"
Bean counter: "Won't consumers feel gipped? Could that cut into sales?"
Developer: "We'll add more 'mine X resource, build Y units and rush the enemy base' missions to fluff it out. Total gameplay hours will be 3 times as long!"
Bean counter: "Brilliant!"
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Nope. And thank God for the color scheme they are using in the beta index and firehose which makes even article titles unreadable. We don't have to read anything now! W00t!
I paid retail for the original Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Tides of Darkness, Starcraft, Brood Wars, Diablo2, Lord of Destruction, and Warcraft 3. I've been waiting for Starcraft 2 for ages, but there's no way I'll put up $180 to play it.
Call me when the trilogy goes to the bargain bin so I can pick it up for $60 ($20 each).
Does this mean they'll be released separately, or just run separately(think Mediaeval TW:Kingdoms)?
*runs*
Where did it say that they were charging full price for each one?
It didn't, the summary was thankfully terse on what would have been interesting details.
I think I'm going to buy all of their new titles, just on general principles whether I play them or not. Blizzard is #1 in the industry at the moment. Blizzard supports Mac OS X out of the box and their developers worked with the Linux wine guys so the Warden didn't kick out people who want to play on Linux.
I'm sick and tired of people who claim Linux and Mac OS X are worthless because no one does games for them, but someone does. I, for one, am going to welcome Gaming Overlord Blizzard right where it counts - in giving them new sales.
That's not how I interpret it at all. I suspect that the three plotlines are running in parallel - there's no cliffhangers because they all run from the beginning of the Starcraft 2 plotline to the end of the Starcraft 2 plotline, they just focus on different races.
I'm going to invent some hypothetical plotline here: perhaps one part of the Terran side's ending involves some allied Protoss buddies showing up and saying "hey hey, we successfully managed our side mission, which we're not going to talk about in detail, let's do the end battle now!". Later, when they release the Protoss game, you'd get to play that side mission, and later you'd also play a detachment of Protoss defending against an unexpected attack that would have slaughtered the first "end battle" group (which you never knew of the existence of the first time you played through, but hey!)
There's lots of ways to structure this that lets them release three games in series, and still not have any cliffhangers. Instead of extending the original plotline, you just layer extra stuff on top of it. As long as you're reasonably careful beforehand you can pull this off without needing to retcon anything.
As I see it, they really want to make a series of games called "Starcraft 2". So there's Starcraft 2 1, Starcraft 2 2, and Starcraft 2 3. Each one, I suspect, is going to be the size of a full-fledged game.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
Trust me, in Australia, we will be paying $99-$120 per pack, as always.
...
I also find it interesting that I see so many World of Warcraft advertisements on slashdot pages...
The Wrath of the Lich King expansion if it makes its release date will be Game of the Year this year. Otherwise if it misses and comes next January, it will be Game of the Year next year.
Most of the time, people complain about things being posted here too late, like say after it appeared on digg a week ago. Consider the WotLK ads to be the PTB's at slashdot apology for all the late articles we've been given.
I think they're wasting money on their ads. Unlike Microsofties and Microsoft Vista, us WoWers are looking forward with great anticipation to the next expansion. It's Blizzard. They have a track record for quality and it WILL be awesome. Just like BC.
Probably not.
Think about it. You 50 bucks usually buys about X amount of hours.
There making x times 3 amount of hours. Three games.
Of course, if each game is 10 stinkin' hours, then yeah there just milking there fan base.
I have a high degree of confidence they will be over 10 hours each.
Blizzards quality has earned my confidence.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Wow. I'm lazy, I just blindly click the page and mash the keyboard now and then. I don't even speak English, I'm just very, very improbable.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
Meh. I don't even like RTS games that much, though I enjoy certain aspects of single player. I hate multiplayer RTS. That said, I _LOVE_ the first three titles in the Warhammer 40k Dawn of War series. When they gave up on making content for their expansions and started bulding the bulk of the gameplay out of their skirmish mode I stopped playing, but those guys know how to make a fun RTS.
They're also the ones who made Company of Heroes, which I never would have tried if I hadn't played DoW first, and which ended up being one of my favorite games ever.
If you have some cash to spare and want something different from your normal gaming fare, hop on steam and buy the Company of Heroes or the Dawn of War value bundles (the ones that come with base game + many expansions). Definitely worth your gaming dollar.
And certainly better than some overbloated Blizztard crap that, despite their assurance it doesn't end with a cliffhanger, will most assuredly end in a cliffhanger, just like every other game they've ever made.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
If they charge 15-20 bucks for each campaign, that'd be fair. I couldn't give a shit about the protoss, but a few years down the line when they're in the bargain bin I might drop 10 bucks to see how the story from SC1 turned out for the terrans in the end.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
You and your infinite improbability keyboard!
This is just way too much. Tone it back, make it one game. Add expansions.
Yep, its fun, except when it causes a whale to spontaneously exist in my room. Have you ever tried to explain to federal wildlife officials how an endangered species got crammed into your apartment?
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
"Let's face it, video game pricing hasn't really kept up with the cost of making games."
Volumes count, Blizzard sells millions of copies now, rather then 100s of thousands.
I just hope it won't be $50 a game, which in total will equal $150...thanks Activision!
Soon? The future is here! MWUAHAHAHAHAH!
Oh wait wtf am I going on about?
You just buy the first part and then play multiplayer. gg gl hf!
What Blizzard, it is just a front for Vivendi. The release of this storey seems more like a feeler so they can see what they can actually get away with. One thing they have to be really careful is the whole startcraft game play style has been done to death since starcraft originally came out and that game play style has become pretty dull and boring. Just dressing up the graphics and then dumping that same old same old, game play style really wont cut it, let alone trying to increase the returns on the engine by splitting them game into three, terran, zerg and protoss.
So it all boils down to, want to play the zerg, pay extra, want to play the protoss pay some more again. A bit bored with that style of gameplay, then at least you now have an excuse to give the whole thing a big miss. I am finding that whole out of scale, miniature toys, tiny maps etc. all somewhat stale and have though they might have gone for a bit more realistic mechanics, considering what other games it has to compete with.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
According to http://pc.ign.com/articles/918/918895p1.html they're planning to have a 1 year gap between games.
They're not communicating clearly because they haven't decided yet. SC2 is still far from release and the 3 games is still on the idea stage.
If it has been done do death since, why is starcraft and warcraft 3 still the most played RTS's in the world?
I think it will run great under WINE. As for WoW, they have: 1) An internal Linux client. They have it. 2) They don't support officially WINE but thanks to WINE they fixed a tremendous bug that was in version 2.1 of the game. Let's put this way: WINE is not officially supported, Linux isn't officially supported as well but they know that at least 1% WoW population is running WINE (it makes on 10 millions 100.000 players). Once I spoke to a GM. He knew about WINE. What makes you think SC2 (and Diablo III) won't be supported as well? Cheers,
>And certainly better than some overbloated Blizztard crap that, despite their assurance it doesn't end with a cliffhanger, will >most assuredly end in a cliffhanger, just like every other game they've ever made.
How can you call starcraft bloated after being a fan of CoH and DoW.
The whole game design is specifically anti-bloat where if a unit is not important enough to gameplay it gets cut so the number of units per team stay near the ideal number of 12.
'I gave it some tuna and then it wouldn't stop following me'?
then yeah they're just milking their fan base.
...*sigh*
Weren't there just two DoW expansions made by Relic? I suppose with first three games you mean DoW, Winter Assault and Dark Crusade. There's Soulstorm but that was outsourced and according to reviews I read it shows, buggy as hell, big content recycling, badly thought out new units, etc.
What's nice is that Relic makes expansions that bring completely new factions into play and with Dark Crusade and Opposing Fronts you can buy just the expansion (but don't get the base content until you get a CDkey for the base game). They also get more and more daring with their faction concepts in later expansions, in DC the Necrons got a completely different economy from everyone else and in OF the Brits and PE break the standard mold the Americans and Wehrmacht have by using different base concepts (Brits have linear tech but mobile "buildings", PE has very flexible teching but to get defenses at ALL you need a doctrine ability) and not using the regular heavy weapons teams (MG, mortar, sniper, AT gun).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Idea stage? They're telling people that this is what they're going to do.
Yes, but none of the details are final yet (other then 3 massive campaigns).
While you are at it, why not compare it to Star Wars movie and it's sequels? Logic is about the same.
Half-Life 1 - 1998
Half-Life 2 - 2004
HL2: Episode One - 2006
HL2: Episode Two - 2007
HL2: Episode Three - they are working on it.
Notice the time between the "expansions"? Its there because episode 2 DID NOT EXIST back when episode 1 came out.
And the time-line is sequential. HL1, HL2, Ep1, Ep2...
SCII will have 3 releases at practically the same time - with parallel time-lines.
And I could bet that at least one of the missions on each map pack fans will dish out money for, will be the exact same mission they'll have in two other map packs.
Only from a different angle.
- Wanna play the "Battle of the burning lollipop fields" as a Zerg after playing it as a Terran? Dish out some more cash.
- Wait, but won't me winning the battle as a Zerg change the story?
- Naaah... Don't worry, just fork over the cash. Outcome of that battle is dealt with a deus ex machina later.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Look at me! I have a 3-digit UID! No, really! you just can't see it...
Remember how annoying it was that every player had to have a license for StarCraft in order to play over LAN or Battlenet? Not everyone in our game group wanted to shell out for it. However, I think many groups will have a "true believer" who will indeed pay $150, while two of his mates can leach off him for lan play. This may actually make multiplayer a better experience in small groups.
If it has been done do death since, why is starcraft and warcraft 3 still the most played RTS's in the world?
I have a theory on this, but then again I have a theory on everything. Technically they aren't theories either really because my lazy ass isn't going to go through the rigor of testing them out.
Warcraft is obviously set in a fictional universe and Starcraft is so far in the future it may as well be a different universe, you can't confuse them with reality. They are an escape. Almost all other RTS have a grain of reality in them - the are set in memorable past, identifiable present or believable future - they aren't a full escape. They lead to temporary escapades in a world where we know the rules because we've seen them written. Warcraft and Starcraft, lacking that rule bound tie to our reality allow the escape to continue, hence why I believe they continue their draw after so many years.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
Pretty much signifies fans.
Let blizzard take control and bam, you fall and something gets rammed up your ass.
What the heck are the wings of libery? You mean liberTy?
Well yes, it is a new laptop. How did you know?
I loved Starcraft. Played it regularly for many years, often going through bouts where my girlfriend, later wife, and I would play every weekend for 8-10 weeks in a row. We played through the single player, and it certainly was compelling, but multiplayer was "where it's at". I've put more time into Starcraft than any other game, hands down. Possibly more than every other game I've played put together, although you might have to take Starflight and its sequels out.
I can easily look at Starcraft 2 and justify buying all three races the same way a WoW player can say "$15/month is cheaper entertainment than anything else I can do". I am totally sold on the new visual direction they're going in, even making single player more muted and dirty than bright and easy to distinguish multiplayer. I love the characters I'm supposed to love and I have the characters I'm supposed to hate.
I just wonder how much money this is going to cost me in babysitting and white chocolate mochas at my local wifi-enabled coffee house. 3 discs may be the cheapest part.
I'll probably just buy one, use that single serial number to play the supposedly unneutered multiplayer, then pirate the other two. they get their $50, and I get my full game. That's the way this works right?
This $150 figure was pull out of one trolls ass, and just repeated as fact, way to go internet, spreading speculation in seconds, then turning it into "fact"
There is no price tag, and if you read the press releases and I quote " Pardo also said that the second two releases could be considered expansion packs, but that "we really want them to feel like stand-alone products."
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6199172.html?tag=latestheadlines;title;1
Yes it would have been perfect to get all 3 campaigns in one $60 box no doubt, but while we remember Starcraft fondly, it's single player was great for the time, but far from a compelling experience. build up a base then units, or use giving units. run them through the map, with possible scripted events inbetween. It was great for the time, but these days it's a little harder to impress, and the games strength lied in it's multiplayer anyways. And if I'm effectivley being told there are 2 more expansions already being produced I can only see that as a good thing, we all wanted more after brood wars.
What is going to be the real factor here, is the quality of the campaign in wings of liberty. If it's a engaging experience and at the end of those missions, blizzard has pulled off another great game, Your wallet will fly out of your pants. If it's a decent experience but you feel it's not really worth the money paid, and 2 more campaigns would make it feel like a full product they've perhaps have gone the EA route of cash grabbing and phoning it in.
The other question is how will multiplayer work, will these indeed be expansions and each one adds more units, and maps to multiplayer. Or go the standalone route, and patches for people that only own wings of liberty. Or something else, again we don't know anything, so lets not waste time and thought on the lack of information.
Heck some of this is just the competative nature of gaming now, Dawn of war 2 will be comming out soon probably before starcraft2, possibly another company of heroes expansion on top of that (I hope that rumor is true). Also perhaps purposley or conicidently World in conflict: soviet assault is without a publisher because of the activision/blizzard/vivendi merger. Though hopefully they will get picked up soon, and even that might be out before starcraft 2, if it does come out at all. Also due to that merger, the homeworlds license is up for grabs again, and relic has done well at THQ, so it could makes sense to buy that on the cheap, and get back to their original game. There's total war, civilization, heck even the lord of the rings EA RTS games were pretty fun.
Here's someting I'll leave with, Deus ex 2 did not ruin deus ex 1. It made me appreciate that deus ex 1 was made, and I was lucky enough to play it and know that deus ex 2 fell far from a tall tree. I hope starcraft 2 dosen't go that route, but it will not diminish my time with it, and my time with/against friends, and online adversaries.
Well, no link to read, so I'm going to go with the summary.
It's a new policy. Since no one RTFA what's the point of having links in the summary?
I guess I was just remembering the good parts of Dark Crusade as a seperate bit from the whole crap where you have to fight 10 skirmish battles with the computer before you can actually do an interesting story mission. I hated that crap. I liked the big set-piece battles in that game but I never finished them all because even with cheating getting through the skirmishes just took way too long. I never bothered with Soulstorm because it looked like even more of that crap and even less interesting bits, even though I would have loved to play Sisters of Battle. And yeah, the things you talk about are a big reason why I like Relic's RTS games and don't really care for all the Dune 2 clones out there, though from what I've seen other companies are also moving away from that.
There aren't a lot of games on my "to buy" list right now, but I definitely plan on picking up DoW 2.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
We're talking about Blizzard, here. Blizzard. We're talking about Blizzard!
They have made the best PC games ever, made a lot of money, yes, and have delivered on each and every one of them.
All you morons and haters are just jealous. Why don't you just wait until you have all the facts before trying to beat down the best gaming company ever. We don't know how much it will cost, we don't know how much the game will change from one set in the trilogy to the next, and we don't know what the requirements will be.
Just like you with your whore last night, you are PREMATURE in your /. ejaculations.
Starcraft (and Brood War) came out in 1998. Since then, Blizzard's been providing online play AND a continued stream of patches and updates, completely free of charge. Even if you paid full price for each piece back when they launched (let's say $50 each), I think you've gotten your money's worth out of the game over the past decade.
Yes, Starcraft 2 may cost more up front by being packaged this way, but if Blizzard's past is any indication, the game's going to give you years of play, with the online support free for the duration. This, of course, is on top of the game itself, which (again, judging from the past) is going to be polished, balanced, and a blast to play.
Blizzard's doing the smart thing here - if they were to rush the game and risk the content being broken or unbalanced even slightly, they'd get ripped apart for this. Even if people bitch now, giving the chunks of the game more development time will lead to a better product...and let's face it, probably 95%+ of the people here whining are going to buy the game and its expansions as soon as they're able to.
And for the record, Starcraft was March '98, and Brood War was November '98. The game and its expansion pack were eight months apart - that's not exactly a long time between the two of them, and, given how long development and marketing take, I'm willing to bet that Brood War wasn't conceived after they'd had time to digest the sales figures from Starcraft for a while. Same goes for Retribution and Insurrection - more content, sold separately, mere months after the release of Starcraft.
Goo goo g'joob.
Second, the RTS market has been fairly quiet in recent years, there's been a few Warhammer titles, and another Age of Empires, but nothing mind blowing.
Third while the whole thing has been done to death, SC is still probably the best RTS that's ever been released.
I personally dislike WC3 because the whole upkeep system shafts my play style, but it wasn't a bad game.
None of this affects the fact that the game play of SC (and even more so the game play for Diablo) has been done to death, even if most implementations sucked.
Blizzard is pulling a gamble here, because the pricing is going to be a mess.
If they make one of them expensive and the other two cheap the vast majority of people will buy one or both of the cheap ones for multi-player and give the expensive one a miss.
If they're all expensive then the same situation but more people will be angry and they're in an even worse situation.
If they're all cheap, then they may as well just have released them as one big game a year later, it's not like Blizz desperately needs new capital in the next 6 months.
They also risk, presuming that multi-player is impacted in any way by which purchase you make, fragmenting the multi-player market so much that there's no one to play with and no one wants to play.
If there's no impact people will be unlikely to pay for the single player campaigns at all.
Personally, while there is a chance they'll pull this off, even a chance it'll be a good thin, I'd predict that the whole fiasco will do more to damage their reputation than anything else, and as they have no excuse for greed as their balance sheets should be well into the black by now.
I wasn't sold on starcraft 2 before I read this and now I'm thinking I wont bother. I loved starcraft and the broodwar expansion and after fallout and x-com it's probably the game I've played the most but that was then and this is now and now there are simply better alternatives. Dawn of war 2 is coming out and it's looking both awesome and innovative in all the areas starcraft 2 isn't, heck even red aleart has it's merits with the possibility to co-op the campaign.
In my eyes this was the last thing starcraft 2 needed. I don't want to buy the game three times and it's looking like you may have too because Chris Sigaty is telling us each installment will bring changes to the multiplayer part in the kotaku interview ( http://kotaku.com/5062018/starcraft-ii-lead-producer-on-the-split-single-player-campaign )which usually makes it something you need to have.
Now they will have to pirate the game 3 times instead of 1!
For the about 5th time on this topic, the plan is for a 1 year gap between releases which renders your whole post meaningless.
Anyone stop to think that maybe they cant actually fit everything on a single disc? It sounds entirely possible to me that they were facing shipping multiple discs in a single game box at the development cost of multiple games, so they just went ahead and made them into separate games. Developing a game isn't free. Who knows, maybe this will allow them to put in more/better content and give each campaign more individual attention.
Let's play a game. I'm going to list the ending to all of Blizzard's games (as I remember them, anybody chime in if I miss something), then you're going to tell me how all (hell, even most) of these are cliffhangers.
Obviously, spoilers ahead.
War1: The Orcs destroy Stormwind Keep and kill King Wrynn
War2: The Humans destroy the Orcish headquarters (the name escapes me at the moment, was it Blackrock again?) and kill Warchief Doomhammer
War2x: The Humans close the Dark Portal, cutting off the Orcs' ability to reinforce and effectively ending the Second War
War3: Archimonde is defeated by the combined forces of the Horde, Alliance, and Sentinels at the cost of the World Tree
War3x: Arthas defeats Illidan in single combat and ascends to become the Lich King
World of Warcraft: Your wife leaves you and your house is repossessed (kidding, kidding! There is no ending though)
Diablo: Diablo is defeated, the PC sticks the Soulstone in his head to contain Diablo
Diablo 2: Diablo is defeated again
Diablo 2x: Baal is defeated, the Worldstone shatters
Starcraft: A Protoss carrier crashes into the Overmind, destroying both
Brood War: Kerrigan ascends to become Queen of the Zerg, the UED fleet is destroyed as it tries to limp away
So far as I can tell, the only thing that approaches a cliffhanger in that list is the original Diablo, and even that's uncertain since it isn't as though Diablo is going to possess the PC the moment after we get cut off. Are you suggesting that each game has unresolved plot threads that leave grounds for a sequel? I certainly wouldn't argue with that, although I don't see why that's a problem.
To get back on topic, I read this as them saying that Starcraft 2 will have 2 expansion packs planned from the start. As someone who cares much more about the 1p content than the multiplayer game, this is great news since more campaigns are always welcome.
Blizzard can afford to wait 3 years as easily as it can afford to wait a year. If WoW ended tomorrow they should still have the cash reserves to last until they could release a finished Starcraft product.
Everything on that list still applies.
Which one is the real game, why should people pay full price for a second one.
If you can play full multi-player without buying the expensive one, then in a year why would anyone ever buy anything but one of the cheap ones.
If you can only play whatever new stuff you get from the expansions with the expansions and everyone has a different expansion so you can't use your new units then why would you pay for them?
If you can use your new units against people who haven't got the expansions then why should anyone play a game where you have to buy three games to be able to play multi-player?
Their, they're; calm down.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
as said earlier i as well shall wait until they come out as a three pack for the price of one game, instead of selling them as three different disks they could of grouped them into one set,ppl will just dl the different maps anyhow.
Honestly, I don't see how this is such a big deal.
They admit that they have overdone it with one third of the campaign. They want to release. They can either make cuts, split the campaign into sections, or make each species' campaign its own entity.
They don't want to cut everything and they don't want to do cliffhangers. Instead of making "Episodes" of campaign for sale a la Halflife, they are splitting everything by species.
They have dropped a lot of man hours and money into the Concept of Starcraft II, so they want to try and make up the deficit. This is exactly why they make expansions/release updates: To get new customers and retain old ones.
For pricing, wouldn't it make more sense that they would take a page out of STEAM's book?
My expectation is that the engine is going to cost $20-30 dollars and each campaign will be $20-$30: Meaning you'd pay 50-60 for one of the titles, and then an additional 60 for the other two.