StarCraft II Single-Player Details Revealed

As Blizzcon approaches, a number of gaming sites were invited out to California to get an early look at the single-player campaign for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. Kotaku has a detailed write-up (spoiler-free version), and 1Up summarizes one of the missions: "... you're on a planet with an alternating day/night cycle (every five minutes, it switches): during daylight, you're safe. You can build forces and go out and destroy structures. At night, the infected Terrans will relentlessly stream towards your base — necessitating a strong defense against the 'zombie horde.'" An interview with some of the developers is available, in which lead designer Dustin Browder says Blizzard will continue their trend of having downloadable maps and other improvements throughout the game's life. BlizzPlanet posted a mission guide for the part of the game they got to see, and new video footage has been released that shows off the single-player mode.

Comments

Re:Sounds like a Standard Tower Defense Game

[Turiko]

tower defence isn't exactly right... tower defence always makes the enemy come from one certain direction, or a few. In this one mission, they'll more then likely come seeping out of every hole.... oh, and they aren't so stupid to run right past your base either :).

Re:Every five minutes

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.screwattack.com/AVGN/2006/Castlevania2

Re:Another Day/Night RTS??

[Desler]

Did you miss the part where this was only just one of the missions? It's not the entire storyline.

Re:Another Day/Night RTS??

[cheesybagel]

I can remember at least two other games doing this off the top of my head. Warcraft III, Wesnoth (ok, that is a tactical turn based game).

Re:Sounds like a Standard Tower Defense Game

[Black Cardinal]

Actually, I think you mean Dune II, the first RTS from Westwood. It was released in 1992. And yes, it was a great game. It runs great on DOSBox, and once in a while I still play it.

SC2 will require internet to install

[Vaphell]

incgamers.com
quote: In order to install the game, "you need to connect once to install the game," StarCraft II lead designer Browder revealed. A player will also either have or sign up for a Battle.net account during the installation process.

Re:SC2 will require internet to install

[seizurebattlerobot]

It goes without saying, though, that this "phone home" feature will be used to enforce an inevitable lifetime install limit. It also goes without saying that this limit will be arbitrarily small.

What I find more troubling, however, is that this DRM is a vehicle to violate the privacy of the user and otherwise subvert the operation of the computer it is running on against the interests of its owner. I have no interest in joining Blizzard's organization (Battle.net) or being subjected to its terms of service, which Blizzard considers legally binding and may change at any time. I have no interests in my personal information being stored indefinitely in Blizzard's marketing database - ready to be sold to the highest bidder, should the company ever become desperate enough for the cash.

If I play this game, it will be a pirated and cracked version that does not have these defects.

Re:SC2 will require internet to install

[Desler]

Why connect to some distance server for all that traffic when the overhead could be kept on the local LAN for strictly local gameplay?

You've apparently never played on Battle.net before. Battle.net has never worked this way. The people all directly connect to each other there is no remote server involved at all. There is no reason to expect this behavior to change.

Re:the next lost generation of koreans

[Joelfabulous]

It wasn't just that it was insanely well balanced, it's also that Blizzard patched it over the years as exploitable game mechanics came about. It could be argued that the constant focus on balancing and rebalancing the game, as well as listening to the community from pros on down is what made Starcraft a perfectly balanced game.

(for an RTS -- I suck horribly at micromanaging so TBS is more my bag)

Re:the next lost generation of koreans

[theheadlessrabbit]

On the bright side, that's millions of available South Korean women.

you've obviously never been to South Korea.

in starcraft, my ass was handed to me by just as many female gamers as male gamers at the PC bang.

Re:the next lost generation of koreans

[twocows]

And those that will tell you that Zerg or Protoss is. The top three Starcraft players in the KeSPA rankings right now are Zerg, then Protoss, then Terran third (link).

Re:Can they do anything wrong?

[Akaihiryuu]

Blizzard wasn't making Ghost. It was being made by a third party (the name escapes me), with Blizzard being given approval over it. They canned it for not meeting their standards.