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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.
"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!"
Multiplayer functionality will be in place for all three races from the start.
Perhaps you should have taken a moment to confirm that indeed, every other post in the thread says the exact same thing.
Including this one; their stated reason is untrue, this is a marketing ploy to sell more units.
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?
Has it ever occurred to anyone that this is actually a good thing? What blizzard is saying is that their massive team of elite game developers simply do not have the time to fit the enormous amount of content they want to put in. This means that there will most likely be 2 more WELL-WORTH games that follow the series coming out. I know how much I wanted to go to blizzard and say "can you make another?" when it came to the brood war expansion. If there were only campaigns that came with the expansions, then people would just pirate it and buy the cd-keys for cheep online. Chances are, the expansions will have more units/buildings, more areas, more neutral objects, and possibly new functions to the old units/buildings. And chances are each one will redefine the way the game is played, and lead to many more hours of good gaming, which is much more than you can say about a whole lot of other expansions.
Help fight spam
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.