StarCraft II Closed Beta Begins

Blizzard announced today that the multiplayer beta test for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty is now underway. The client downloader is available through Battle.net for people who have received invites, and the system requirements have been posted as well. A list of known issues is up on the official forums. StarCraft II and the revamped Battle.net are planned for release "in the first half of 2010."

Comments

Been so long

[Evelas]

But wasn't Diablo 3 announced first? Where is that beta?

Re:Been so long

[Monkeedude1212]

It was at Blizzcon. I believe they gathered enough info there to do more work, and will release that beta when all the classes are finished.

Re:Been so long

[sopssa]

Exactly and like:
Release date(s) 2011 or later

What is this I don't even

Re:Been so long

[Conchobair]

Nope. Announced Dates:
StarCraft II - May 19, 2007
Diablo 3 - June 28, 2008

Although, it would not be inconceivable for Blizzard to have done that. They are all about taking as much time as it takes to get things done and have never shied away from pushing a title or patch back in order to ensure it was as polished as possible. This is why all of their games kick ass and kill Koreans imo. They go for quality over cutting content for a early release (KOTR2) or a pretty release date (Hellgate).

Re:Been so long

[cheesybagel]

Taking as much time as it takes to get things done eh? Where did I hear that before... Oh I remember 3DRealms. Well Blizzard is not getting bankrupt anytime soon since they have the WoW cash cow, but they are known for dropping releases on occasion. Remember Starcraft: Ghost? Or what about Blackthorne?

Was it that hard to release a Starcraft version based on the Warcraft III engine a couple of years afterwards? Why did they have to make a new engine? The mind boggles.

Re:Been so long

[HeronBlademaster]

Maybe they didn't like the WC3 engine, and wanted something better?

Re:Been so long

[Snaller]

His point was that Blizzard takes the time to do it right, not to refer to using w3s engine for sc2

Re:Been so long

[Vaphell]

hellgate was rushed by the publisher because they wanted to see the monies, unfortunately unpolished mmo-like product usually doesn't get a second chance and the game failed. Blizzard is unique because they are immune to the hard gamedev reality thanks to endless stream of money from WoW. If there was no WoW they would be in trouble, after all SC2 is in development for 7 or 8 years already.

Re:Been so long

[vcgodinich]

Sorry sport, blizzard was making good games before their "cash cow".

Maybe the "hard gamedev" reality is that people want, and will pay for polished, good games.

Why do you think that WoW is more of a cash cow than the myriad of other mmorpgs? It's because people like it, it is a fun, polished game.

SCII will do well against the same "hard gamedev" because they have made it like each of their other games, well.

Re:Been so long

[fractoid]

It would be "date(s)" because they plan to release SC2 as a series of three separate games, each one containing one species' campaign. They did this because (a) they wanted to tell more story for each species than would fit in 8-10 missions, and (b) that way the mattress made of money that BlizzVendiVision collectively curls up on every night can be three times as thick and comfy.

Re:Been so long

[fractoid]

Was it that hard to release a Starcraft version based on the Warcraft III engine a couple of years afterwards? Why did they have to make a new engine? The mind boggles.

No, it wasn't that *hard*, but it wasn't *good enough*. WC3 sorta worked because they made it about small parties of units with a hero. Starcraft is a game about massive epic battles with zillions of zerglings, and would have choked the WC3 engine to death.

Re:Been so long

[fractoid]

Exactly. Every Blizzard game they've released has been the source of an "endless stream of money" that makes them "immune to the hard gamedev reality" because the real "hard reality" is that they take the time to polish their games until they shine, and so their games are still selling in shops TEN YEARS LATER. WoW's been out for 5 years, the original Starcraft came out in '98 and is still one of the better RTS games.

Re:Been so long

[halowolf]

And lets not forget that they also do simultaneous quality Mac releases that are not a load of crap, cough, Warhammer Online Mac client, cough. So I don't have to worry about installing it into my Bootcamp Windows partition to play. I can instead use my preferred OS.

Re:Been so long

[vegiVamp]

I have no problem whatsoever with (b), as long as (a) works as advertised.

Re:Been so long

[goose-incarnated]

Also note that the original starcraft was initiated based on the wc2 engine, and then they re-did the engine when it could not handle the things they wanted to do (such as cloaking, high/low ground, etc). Presumably the wc3 engine does not do things they envision for starcraft 2.

Re:Been so long

[heson]

May 19, "Excellent", lots of time for a nice warm up with Supreme Commander 2 to get the rsi going.

Mac

[Chris Lawrence]

No Mac version yet, unfortunately. Both Mac and PC versions are going to be released together on the same media, but no word yet if Mac users will get to play with the beta.

Re:Mac

[sopssa]

I don't think that's really their priority just yet, but to test everything else in the game. Just get to PC if you want to play games like everyone else.

Re:Mac

[verbalcontract]

According to the beta FAQ, the Mac version is coming:

Will there be a Mac version of the beta client?
We plan to release a Mac version of the beta client at some point during the beta test period. We’ll have further details to share as the beta test progresses.

via the beta FAQ.

Re:Mac

[Chris Lawrence]

Excellent news! I've been registered for the beta for a long time (along with my system info), so I hope they send me an invite when the Mac version is ready.

Re:Mac

[mrxak]

It makes perfect sense. They're going to *have* to do a beta test for the Mac at some point, as they are going to release the final game on that platform. My guess is, Mac system profiles on people's battle.net accounts actually make for greater odds in getting in, as there will be less of them. It'll just take longer to get in if you're so lucky.

Lost my interest

[Kitkoan]

When they declared it would be sold as three different packs, one per race. While they do have a history of expansion packs, it's never been 1 with 2 more like this, nor planned this far in advanced to break it up and sell the parts.

Re:Lost my interest

[megamerican]

It seems a little odd to be upset that they are more upfront about their plans for expansion packs and the content that will be in them. Each race will still be playable in multiplayer. There is no indication that the SCII won't have as much single player content as the original SC, albeit you'll only be able to play one races campaign.

I'd much rather wait and see more details on what it entails before passing judgement.

Re:Lost my interest

[sopssa]

Do we really have to go thru this in every StarCraft II story?

Why would you lose interest in the game because of that? Please tell me. They're separate stories and most likely priced as expansions too. And it's not like they made the 100% ready and are just keeping the two later expansion packs with them self now.

Re:Lost my interest

[jollyreaper]

When they declared it would be sold as three different packs, one per race. While they do have a history of expansion packs, it's never been 1 with 2 more like this, nor planned this far in advanced to break it up and sell the parts.

Wouldn't be so bad of an idea if done intelligently. For games we really like, expansion packs are loved. Figuring full retail, that's $40 for the game (back in the day), $20 each for the expansions. You could end up spending $80 if you bought it all new, or you could get the bundle months later for $40. You paid for two games and the developer probably didn't have to expend as much effort on two expansions as with the full original game. Win win for all.

What gets to be bullshit is when the $60 game is chopped up and you're left paying the full freight for the original game plus the expansions.

What I always thought would be fair is something like this: the developer plans out the game with maybe six races total. Starcraft has a lot of Warhammer 40k similarities and just think of how many races you have in that setting, it's more than orks and humans and eldar. But we'll stick with Starcraft. You sell the game with three races. The development of additional races is proceeding alongside. Sell the game for full price and then release additional races with full campaigns as add-ons. Don't skimp on the details but charge a fair price. The customer knows he's getting another 20 hours of gameplay with the expansion, plus he can use the new race in multiplayer. Then after the game's been out for a while, all the add-ons can be bundled in a battlechest and the people who skipped it when it launched can catch up with the fun. The publisher makes more money which is an upside, the fan gets more game which is another upside.

Of course, this can be more complicated than I think. I thought the idea of episodic content for shooters was a good idea, sell the game in affordable, bite-sized serial format but the reality was less enjoyable. And the dick move usually is the one that gets made. So you buy a full game like Dragon Age and are getting propositioned for add-ons that were developed at the same time as the original game and should have been included in the first place. That's not like Lord of the Rings where they're releasing three movies at once, always planned on doing so and you feel you're getting your money's worth, this is more like Kill Bill where it was supposed to be one movie and they just released it as two to make more money and planned on soaking the fans by releasing multiple versions on DVD.

Re:Lost my interest

[Kitkoan]

Why would you lose interest in the game because of that? Please tell me.

Because it's a bad for the industry as a whole. When a big player can suddenly decide to stop selling a full product and instead just sell it in parts with each part at full price, or near enough, is shows others that they can get away with this too. Its been shown with the downloadable content thats running rampant and wild to the point that it's being planned upon and worked on before the basic product is available, and being available on the games release date. Now instead of having a full game being sold we can buy something like RE5 and spend more money to open up the multi-player modes, or games like Sonic where you can pay to open up the harder difficulty mode. Refusing to buy and not just refusing but mentioning way is what helps. Or we can all look forward to buy every game a small sub-sets at full prices.

Re:Lost my interest

[verbalcontract]

I don't understand knocking Blizzard for splitting this into three releases. There's going to be 26 to 30 missions in the first Terran-only single-player campaign (source), which would put it on par with the first Starcraft. Presumably, there will be 26-30 missions in each of the following stories, plus additional units (as Blizzard has done whenever they've released an expansion to the game). Blizzard has never developed and released a half-baked expansion in its entire history; the closest thing might be Diablo: Hellfire, which was developed by an outside company, and I don't know if it was priced appropriately on release.

So what's the hate for, beyond the usual fishing for things to hate? If you really don't think it's going to be good value to you, wait until it goes on sale, or just don't buy the game. Chess is freely available to all.

Re:Lost my interest

[Kitkoan]

this is more like Kill Bill where it was supposed to be one movie and they just released it as two to make more money and planned on soaking the fans by releasing multiple versions on DVD.

You mean like Grindhouse that was both movies in theater but then had to be sold as 2 different movies when it went to DVD just to make more money (the money they were hoping to make during the theater run but didn't get). Strangely, in both movies it was centered with movies by Quentin Tarantino.

Re:Lost my interest

[Nos.]

I remember seeing numbers posted here. The initial game will be a campaign for one race, approximately 40 missions. This was comparable (maybe even slightly more) than the original Starcraft. The expansions to SCII will each have another campaign for one of the races, with around 40 missions. This is more than BroodWar had. So, if instead, they released SCII with ~13 missions for each race, which is basically how the original was released, you'd be okay with that?

Seems like nitpicking to me.

Re:Lost my interest

[megamerican]

Where have they said they aren't releasing a complete game at launch and where have the released their pricing scheme?

You are simply making assumptions.

Re:Lost my interest

[jollyreaper]

You mean like Grindhouse that was both movies in theater but then had to be sold as 2 different movies when it went to DVD just to make more money (the money they were hoping to make during the theater run but didn't get). Strangely, in both movies it was centered with movies by Quentin Tarantino.

Well, I'd be willing to pay money not to own a copy of Death Proof. If I were ever going to buy the Aliens movies, I'd want to pay to get the first two unbundled from the rest of the crappy ones. :)

But yeah, those are dick moves. This isn't the publisher saying hear me out, this is going to be good for all of us and winning you over. This is the publisher pissing down your neck and not even making that much of an effort to convince you it's rain.

From my perspective I think "Hey, we can release more expansions, give the developers a more consistent revenue stream and enhance the quality of the experience for players." But the publisher's perspective is "Let's soak these fans for as much as possible, nickel and dime them for shit that should have already been in the original game, and still not pay the developer any more than they would have gotten off of doing things the old way!" The publisher approach would be taking a look at the kind of money spent on D&D materials and they'd just see bullshit dollar signs in their eyes.

From the looks of things, Rockstar did a decent job with the GTAIV expansions. You've got the core game, then you have the expansions that deliver more content and interconnecting stories to the existing game.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

I'm not upset that they're being up front about it, I'm upset that they're doing it at all.

See, instead of selling me "Starcraft II", they're selling me "Starcraft II, Terran Campaign" and pretending it's a full sequel to the original.

The reality is, to get the full sequel to the original, I'm going to have to buy three games.

Between that and the lack of real LAN play, they can count me as a lost customer.

Re:Lost my interest

[SatanicPuppy]

Hellfire was developed by Sierra, and priced at 29.00, iirc. (What a crappy expansion that was. No surprise they never farmed out to a 3rd party again).

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

They're separate stories and most likely priced as expansions too.

They have given no indication the second and third games will be priced as expansions. In fact, given their claims about campaign lengths, they're indicating that they will be priced as full games, not as expansions.

Re:Lost my interest

[Anonymous Coward]

And I am sure they will cry about losing you as a customer when millions of others are more than eager to depart with their hard earned cash.

Re:Lost my interest

[ScytheBlade1]

So if they announced SC2, SC3, and SC4, would you be equally as upset? Yes?

What if SC2 has as much content as the original Starcraft? And what if SC3 had as much content as the Expansion?

Guess what?

SC2 "Episode 1" has as much content as the original.

Re:Lost my interest

[khellendros1984]

You have the game and two expansions, and each one has about the number of levels that the original game had. It's a different direction for the game,, but I don't think it's bad (as long as the expansions don't cost as much as the full game...and maybe if they publish a whopping 90 mission version at some point)

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

According to 1up, Blizzard is promising between 26-30 missions per game. If so, that puts each game at 2/3 the size of SC1 (at least in terms of missions). But do you think they'll be charging 2/3 the price? Of course not. Do you have a reliable source where blizzard promises 40 missions per game?

The other potential issue I see is that once the second game comes out, anyone who plays multiplayer is going to have to buy the second game too if they want to keep playing multiplayer (as happened with SC1 and Brood War).

They've said they won't do that, that anyone with the first game will be able to play multiplayer with the other two, but unless they actually patch the first game with new units from the second and third games I see it as extremely unlikely, and I also see it as unlikely that they would release two more games without adding new units to the factions.

Re:Lost my interest

[khellendros1984]

If they're priced as full games, I'll be a little miffed. I've got plenty of choice in games, so something like that *may* lose them my sale....but probably not. And I think that's the gamble they're going for. Blizzard puts out top-notch stuff. It's possible they're pushing for recognition of premium content with higher prices. Some people will be swept up in a wave of "OMG Starcraft!!" and that'll probably be enough to make the games massively successful, regardless of what price they come out as.

Re:Lost my interest

[GigaplexNZ]

I actually think the splitting of the campaigns is a good thing as it enables them to develop the story further and provide more content. I do however agree with the LAN issue - it seems most games I am interested in these days doesn't have a reasonable way of playing offline LAN games.

Re:Lost my interest

[Vaphell]

still it's 30 terran missions and pretty much nothing else (there is some small protoss campaign-like thing). How many levels in a row can you play not to get bored with marines, siege tanks, and unlocking tech and playing mini-games of farming resources? unless you are a total shill, 3x10 > 1x30
There is a reason nobody tried to make a true RTS game with only 1 faction available at the release before.
Episodic nature is ok when all episodes offer full experience on their own, in case of sc2 we have to wait undefined amount of time to get another puzzle, and then wait again. Earlier games were complete.
It's a slippery slope from the gamer's perspective, companies will be justified to do even more of such dirty tricks, allowing them to offer less for more and more. In ten years people will be buying games for 60 bucks that offer 3 singleplayer missions and the other 95% of the game will be released in 10 expansions and 20 dlc's.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

I was about to ask why I got modded Troll, and then I realized that it was probably just someone modding me "-1 Disagree".

Note to moderators: You may like Starcraft 2. Heck, I'm sure I would like Starcraft 2. But I'm willing to forgo its potential awesomeness, because Blizzard has made some choices with which I strongly disagree. This is called "voting with your wallet", and I am in no way saying you're wrong for buying the game; I'm simply saying I'm upset about it. This isn't trolling, it's simply an explanation of why I won't be buying the game.

Re:Lost my interest

[Starayo]

Modded troll? They ARE doing that! It's disgusting!

I'm not buying it until I can get each at 1/3 the cost of a new game.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

It doesn't really matter whether Blizzard even notices. See, some of us have these things called "principles" and "values", and we stand up for them even if nobody else cares.

Blizzard wants to shove a LAN-less multiplayer game at us. That's fine, but I'm not going to buy it because I like LAN games.

It's also a demonstration on Blizzard's part that they no longer care about their own roots. Starcraft was so popular largely because of its LAN-friendly multiplayer games. I don't like it when companies abandon their roots.

Heck, Blizzard even provided spawn copies of Starcraft you could use for multiplayer games, so you could play with your friends even if they didn't have their own copies of the game. Do you think they'll be doing that with SC2? Of course not.

My decision to refuse to buy Starcraft 2 has as much to do with Blizzard's attitude as it has to do with the game itself.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

SC2 "Episode 1" has as much content as the original.

What does "as much content" mean?

The original let me install spawn copies of the game on multiple computers, so I could play multiplayer with my friends even if they didn't own the game. That's a lot of "content" that SC2 won't have, in my view.

If they had announced it as three full games, I'd still be irritated: it's the same effect.

SC2 doesn't have "as much content" (in the sense of missions) because it's only showing 1/3 of the storyline. We only get the Terran viewpoint.

That was the great thing about the original game. You got three races' stories as they related to a central storyline. We won't be getting that with SC2 until all three games are out.

So to get the same experience, in that sense at least, we have to buy three full games.

I'm sure SC2 will have some large number of missions that by mission count makes it "equal" to SC1. But we're still only getting 1/3 of the story, and that's very disappointing to me.

Re:Lost my interest

[ScytheBlade1]

Who says that's only 1/3 of the story? When/if they announce SC3 proper, that number changes to 1/4. If you count the original and the expansion, 1/6. The N64 version had extra content that was only on the N64, so 1/7. Then they'll announce the next expansion to SC3, and that will be 1/8.

Saying "I'm getting a fixed portion of the story, where that portion is less than one -- and I don't like paying to get the rest" is meaningless when we don't know what the denominator on that fraction is, when it stops, or if it will stop any time soon.

Re:Lost my interest

[DudemanX]

Dawn of War 2 works like this and is a great game. One massive(and really fun, especially with co-op) Space Marine campaign mode and a robust multiplayer mode with 4 distinct races. They're not even going to try and bother to make campaigns for the other races. The expansion for that is about to come out soon and it's still just more Space Marine campaign missions along with a new multiplayer race(Chaos Marines) and new multiplayer units for all races. Would it be nice to have an Ork campaign too? Sure, but a lack thereof doesn't make the large Space Marine campaign and robust multiplayer any less of a full game.

Re:Lost my interest

[ShakaUVM]

>>So you buy a full game like Dragon Age and are getting propositioned for add-ons that were developed at the same time as the original game and should have been included in the first place.

Warden's Keep came with my copy of the game, but I agree the whole DLC thing has become kind of despicable. Sure, they're free to do whatever they want to make more money and kill the resale market or whatever, but when something becomes blatantly mercentary, there's blowback from annoyed customers.

Build up enough of a rage meter on your customers, and they'll start refusing to buy your products. I refused to buy L4D2 for similar reasons, though I'm sure it's a perfectly good game.

Re:Lost my interest

[Vaphell]

Multiplayer in particular is also where most of the serious replay value lies. Of course you didn't really "forget", you just lied.

multiplayer is where replay value lies but i like to play single player content from time to time, i like SC lore. For noobs single player is where they learn units, strats and stuff. Besides if you think that hardcore players spending night and day at battlenet are a majority you are mistaken, casuals who like single player because they won't be owned there are a significant chunk of customer base.

You said "total shill" when you meant "someone with different tastes than me". This further proves you a liar.

no i mean people that think blizzard can do no wrong and their every design decision is the best thing since sliced bread and sacred. Don't forget that most of their actions are now dictated by Darth Bobby Kotick.

Re:Lost my interest

[RoFLKOPTr]

The only problem I have with the inclusion of only one race's campaign in each game is that I don't have an opportunity to practice anything but that race offline. The three races (at least in SC1, and I'm assuming this is still the case) are so completely different. You can't learn to play Terran and win every match and then switch to Protoss and expect to be any good. They don't just have the same set of buildings with different names. The three races have completely different technologies, build orders, units, and strategies. Perhaps if you play the game a lot, it might not be that hard to switch races, but the majority of people who will buy SC2 haven't played Starcraft in several years...... if ever...... so Blizzard had best put an offline or bot mode to run single missions of every race knowing that you won't be rushed by some kid in Korea.

Re:Lost my interest

[mrxak]

A few of other points to back you up here...

The "equal number of missions" thing will probably just mean lots and lots of filler, or a far slower progression in terms of techs/units involved.

Starcraft 2 also has a lot of RPG elements that RTS players don't care about or want. The reason Blizzard gives for splitting the game into three parts essentially boils down to the extra time involved to create the "content" that makes you do between-mission "quests" instead of a nice straight-forward mission briefing so you can get to the game you want to play.

Multiplayer, despite allowing you to play all three races, is not going to be the same between the three releases. Essentially, if you want to play multiplayer, you'll still have to wait until the third game comes out before Blizzard stops tinkering with new units, etc., and the game becomes stable enough for the final balance tweaks that will make Starcraft 2 so good in multiplayer.

Re:Lost my interest

[mrxak]

Thing is, 30 missions straight of Terran-only is going to mean a lot of filler, a really slow progression in tech trees, and probably a fair bit of boredom doing the same things with the same units over and over. I'd gladly take three different races at 10 missions apiece, without any silly RPG stuff between-missions, and a stable multiplayer platform Blizzard can spend time balancing.

Re:Lost my interest

[TheKidWho]

Thing is, 30 missions straight of Terran-only is going to mean a lot of filler, a really slow progression in tech trees, and probably a fair bit of boredom doing the same things with the same units over and over. I'd gladly take three different races at 10 missions apiece, without any silly RPG stuff between-missions, and a stable multiplayer platform Blizzard can spend time balancing.

Says who? you?

Blizzard has a pretty damned good reputation for making great story lines in their games, I doubt they would be happy with the quality if 75% of the missions were crappy filler.

I'll take Blizzard's reputation over some /.'rs snarky comment.

Re:Lost my interest

[IKnwThePiecesFt]

Like custom games?

I'm 99.9% sure Starcraft 2 will have custom games, just like the first one.

Re:Lost my interest

[Ihmhi]

I would assume that Multiplayer also means you can play Single Player skirmishes as any race and against any race. I don't see why they wouldn't do that.

I rarely play RTS games online but I do enjoy playing skirmishes every once in a while.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

There's nothing inherently wrong with it, but it's not what I want from the game, and if they're going to call me a pirate for wanting LAN play, well, they get to lose my sale.

I'm just voting with my wallet. You don't have to agree with me.

Re:Lost my interest

[Vaphell]

coincidentally all their previous games had main storyline told from perspective of all factions, WoW on the other hand has no story at all. So what's the reasoning behind your idea that blizzard somehow is able to turn 15 filler missions into player's wet dream? Remember that they are the part of the machine called Activision where 'exploiting on a yearly basis' is the way to go and their last non-WoW game was released in 2003.

Re:Lost my interest

[mjwx]

Because it's a bad for the industry as a whole

You can blame Microsoft for this idea.

DLC and Micropayments came about on the Xbox and are killing perfectly good games as unscrupulous publishers deliberately withhold parts of a finished game so they can be flogged for 800 Microsoft Points(TM) a piece.

We long time PC gamers are well familiar with the concept of an expansion pack but this was at least 6 hours of good game-play for approx 60% of the price of a new game (for this reason I like expansion packs, it helps to support a developer after the games publication). Now days 6 hours is considered a full game. MS has been trying to push DLC on the PC with Games For Windows Live, fortunately other players like Valve and Stardock aren't playing this game so MS is having a bit of trouble (but this hasn't stopped them from trying to shovel it in).

And they say PC gaming is dying, I would certainly hope not as it's the last real impediment to being nickeled and dimed (as the yanks say) for every moment of gaming.

Take the Fallout 3 DLC, there is enough content there for maybe 2 expansion packs, it should not have been split into 5 for A$15 a piece? Compare this to the amount of new content I got in Civilisation Beyond the Sword, which was a scant A$40. I also like the idea of expandalones, it allows developers to reuse the games engine and much of the art assets with a new story line whilst selling for less then a full title (well most of them do). I like supporting developers and publishers who do the right thing by me, this means expansion packs and expandalones are OK, nickel and dime DLC is not..

Re:Lost my interest

[nanoflower]

I can tell you that my main interest in SCII lies in the single player game. I don't think I ever spent more than a few hours in multiplayer mode on Star craft . It's just not interesting to me since it comes down to rushing the other player and I'm not into that. Even if I got good at it then it would just be me doing the same thing. I enjoyed multiplayer mode in Diablo/Diablo II/LOD much more than I ever did in Starcraft. I can't imagine how many hours I spent playing DII online. That's one problem I have with the new take Blizzard has with Starcraft II. I would prefer them to release a version with all three races playable in single player mode. Then if they want to carry the story further release expansion packs that develop the story for each of the races. That isn't going to happen but it's how I would have prefered them to release the game.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

I didn't say it's too little content for the money. I said it's not the content that I want for the money.

All I'm saying is that I'm voting with my wallet. Why is it so hard for you people to accept that?

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

The difference is, nobody ever marketed Fellowship of the Ring as if it were a full sequel to The Hobbit.

They're trying to pretend Starcraft 2's first episode (or whatever you want to call it) is a "full sequel". It's not - the full sequel includes all three campaigns.

Let me put it this way: if you want the full story that Blizzard originally set out to tell in Starcraft 2 before the split it into three games, you have to buy all three games.

One less whiny fanboi that I don't have to listen to

I don't think you understand what the word "fanboi" means.

I refuse to buy something that is missing what I consider to be an essential feature. How does that make me a "fanboi" of any sort?

A fanboy is someone who blindly and vigorously supports (or, for anti-fanboys, defames) some product or company, regardless of the soundness of their position.

For example, a Linux fanboy is someone who insists Linux is the best OS and that nobody should ever need anything else, and anyone who thinks they need Windows is just wrong no matter what.

I fully agree that Starcraft 2 will likely be an excellent game, such as it is; however, that in and of itself is not sufficient to gain access to my wallet.

Linux is decent, as far as it goes; however, I can't play Star Trek Online without magic voodoo in Wine (which, incidentally, I can't get to compile). Thus, I won't use it regularly. By your logic, that makes me some sort of "whiny fanboi"... though of what, I doubt anyone could say.

Re:Lost my interest

[vcgodinich]

Because you haven't given a good reason as to why you are voting the way you are.

Sorry, but while clever, SCI was not fantabulious because you could play all three race's stories on release day.

Would you care if they took 3x as long in development, then released a truly MASSIVE amount of content in one installment, charging 3x as much? Because that is your reason for "voting with your wallet" and frankly it's utterly ridiculous.

Re:Lost my interest

[vcgodinich]

FFS you haven't even SEEN the game, or read a single review.

All we really know is that it is made by Blizzard and APPARENTLY people like their work.

Are you really willing to bet that it will suck? Because all the facts, all the history, all the other great Blizz games are all telling me "This game won't suck"

Seriously, name a developer with a better track record.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

Sorry, but while clever, SCI was not fantabulious because you could play all three race's stories on release day.

Starcraft 1 was fantastic largely due to its LAN play support (and, related to it, its ability to spawn multiplayer copies of the game for your friends), which not only let us play with our friends in large, internet-less groups, but introduced people to the game who later bought the game because they had a chance to play it for free. I'm one of those people who bought it thanks to a spawn copy (in fact I bought two copies of the game).

Starcraft 2 lacks both of these things.

Starcraft 1 also told a fairly compelling story between its three campaigns, and the campaigns were paced well enough to keep you interested without letting you get bored with the factions.

It's possible Starcraft 2 will be able to keep us entertained through 30 or more missions playing the same faction. It's possible the storyline will remain compelling and feel somewhat complete, even though we'll be missing two-thirds of the storyline.

Starcraft's multiplayer was great. But when Brood War came out, non-expansion Battle.net became a ghost town (and for good reason; BW was better). But BW only cost $20, and it contained three more campaigns to boot.

With Starcraft 2, this won't happen once, it'll happen twice - and if you believe they'll only charge $20 per installment, you're being deliberately naive. Sure, they claim the installments "will be expansions and priced as such", but that could mean anything. All it really means is that they're tentatively planning on charging something less than the full price of the first installment. I will not be surprised one bit if they forget their statements and charge full price anyway.

Then there's Blizzard's whole attitude toward gamers. Rather than doing their best to get the game out there, to expose it to as many people as possible (which was the purpose of multiplayer spawn copies), they're doing their best to force everyone who wants to play to pay up front.

That is, they're treating everyone as pirates until proven otherwise. It's an attitude that I find repugnant. The fact that it is the prevalent attitude in the game industry as a whole doesn't soften the blow at all.

They've claimed on multiple occasions that only pirates want LAN play. I'm not a pirate, yet I want LAN play. What does that reveal about their attitude toward me? It reveals that they're not interested in my money.

Well, if they want to sneer at my money, I see no reason to give it to them.

If you fault me for that, you're a moron.

Would you care if they took 3x as long in development, then released a truly MASSIVE amount of content in one installment, charging 3x as much?

They've taken long enough to develop the game as it is. Did you ever stop to wonder if maybe that's the whole reason they're splitting it into three releases in the first place?

Re:Lost my interest

[Loomismeister]

There are actually protoss and zerg mini campaigns to teach you how to play them. You really shouldn't be critical of this game because of some morons ranting about things they don't know anything about.

Re:Lost my interest

[brkello]

Everyone has principles and values. For example, I like to buy games from game companies that make kick ass games. To each their own.

Starcraft was popular because it had an amazing single player campaign, had great multi-player balance, was polished like hell, and had an active modding community. To claim LAN made the game is a wild wild exaggeration.

Also, to claim that Blizzard doesn't care about its roots is just your opinion. I mean, if they didn't care about their roots, why would they still be supporting Starcraft? So, your opinion is just wrong.

And on top of that, you have no idea how it will be implemented. It probably will just need to authenticate and then will play over the LAN since the server is on a computer and not at their site. So it probably won't even be a big deal...particularly now that we are in the future and most people have a connection.

But yes, ultimately Blizzard won't notice your little boycott. You can just sit behind your keyboard knowing your principles and values are so much better than all of us poor sheep enjoying the hell out of Starcraft 2. Feel free to pat yourself on the back now.

Re:Lost my interest

[brkello]

Your assumption, which is wrong, that it isn't a full game. If you damn them now, you should have damned them when they released Brood Wars. It has roughly the same number of missions as the first full game. If they feel they can give each race a full Starcraft length story, then good on them for doing it.

People told Queen not to make Bohemian Rhapsody because it was too long for radio and no one wanted a ballad. It turned out to be epic. This could be the same. Or, it could be crap. But I am not retarded and damning a company before I really know what is going on.

Re:Lost my interest

[fractoid]

See, instead of selling me "Starcraft II", they're selling me "Starcraft II, Terran Campaign" and pretending it's a full sequel to the original. The reality is, to get the full sequel to the original, I'm going to have to buy three games.

You probably liked The Hobbit and then said the same thing about Lord of the Rings.

Re:Lost my interest

[centuren]

Take the Fallout 3 DLC, there is enough content there for maybe 2 expansion packs, it should not have been split into 5 for A$15 a piece? Compare this to the amount of new content I got in Civilisation Beyond the Sword, which was a scant A$40. I also like the idea of expandalones, it allows developers to reuse the games engine and much of the art assets with a new story line whilst selling for less then a full title (well most of them do). I like supporting developers and publishers who do the right thing by me, this means expansion packs and expandalones are OK, nickel and dime DLC is not..

There's always knowing that, after a year or so, there will be a Game of the Year Edition that includes all the expansion packs for less than the vanilla game's original price.

Re:Lost my interest

[Rayonic]

Instead of three 10 mission campaigns, there will be three 30 mission campaigns.

Plus, multiplayer for all three races will be in the first release. And presumably new units for all three sides will be added with each expansion.

So... quit whining?

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

So you're saying I should abandon my stated purpose merely because it will have no visible effect on Blizzard's bottom line?

Re:Lost my interest

[Loomismeister]

Exactly, they will sell the games for what they are worth. Get ready for the game of the decade, or miss it because of some false anti blizzard rant. Either way it will be a giant hit.

Re:Lost my interest

[Loomismeister]

Have you seen any of the single player preview? It looks amazing!

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

Uh... no. Those situations aren't even remotely comparable.

See, Tolkien did not sell the Hobbit, then say "hey, I'm writing a sequel", then when it became clear it would take more than three years to write, split it into three parts to be more profitable.

He just wrote a story.

The fact that it was first published in three volumes is largely irrelevant; had Tolkien's preference been deemed of utmost importance, I'm sure he would have opted to have it published as one volume, because that's how he thought of the story.

That's not the case with Blizzard. Blizzard is both writer and publisher. They control both the story and its published form. They decided to split it into three specifically so it would be more profitable.

Starcraft 2 was originally supposed to be all three campaigns in one game. That was never the case with LotR.

If Blizzard had said from the start that it would be three games, I'd be less irritated. I realize that they're entitled to change their mind, but I'm just as entitled to be irritated when they do.

Re:Lost my interest

[brkello]

Not even close. Actually, I fully support people's decision to not purchase products that don't deliver what they want.

I just completely disagree with the logic you use to come to your conclusions. I also felt your post was a bit preachy...like you were the only one that had values and that other people must not since we would purchase the game.

Ultimately, I think it is good to boycott games with overly restrictive DRM. I just don't see anything that heinous in what Blizzard is doing. The fact that you have to exaggerate your points is a form of intellectual dishonesty to me.

I'm not trying to get you to buy the game. I am sure my opinion doesn't really matter to you. I am just trying to articulate that you aren't being logical on a lot of your points.

Re:Lost my interest

[vcgodinich]

Give me a break. People still play SC1, and NOT because it has LAN support, or that you could run free copies.

BTW on a lan SC2 will still use local data transfer, it connects to the server to start for 1) hacking and 2) piracy issues. There is just not a real case in saying that lack of internet for authentication will prevent you from playing in a given situation.

As to your other silly points. . . would you not play wow or D1/2 if you know that the story was going to continue in a later expansion? Please.

As to your critique of blizzard's marketing. . . you are aware that they are doing something correct yes? You are aware that you are just a commentator on the internet crying that you know better than the industry leader yes? You do know that this game will sell sell sell and we will all be having fun while you stew at home, not enjoying a great game because the company actually wants to be paid for their work.

Screw it' i am done with you. The reality is that you will buy this game like everyone else and enjoy it. Quit pretending you have such high and mighty values that you will wake the moronic decision to not play a game because the company that makes it wants a return on their investment.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

My main point is just this: Blizzard is omitting a feature I consider to be essential in RTS games. I also feel they're deliberately mistreating an important segment of their target audience (by calling them pirates for wanting LAN play). As a result, I will not buy the game unless they rectify the situation.

It only got preachy and exaggerated because people thought those reasons were lame; yet those are the best reasons anyone could ever have for not buying any product (it doesn't do what I want, and they're not treating me right).

Re:Lost my interest

[Kitkoan]

Your assumption, which is wrong, that it isn't a full game. If you damn them now, you should have damned them when they released Brood Wars. It has roughly the same number of missions as the first full game. If they feel they can give each race a full Starcraft length story, then good on them for doing it.

Blizzard mentioned back in 2008 that they were splitting the whole game into 3 campaigns ( http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2008/10/11/starcraft-2-split-into-three-parts-terran-wings-of-liberty-zerg-heart-of-the-swarm-and-protoss-legacy-of-the-void.htm ). And it takes more then size to judge a game. It takes quality. Breaking a story from 1 whole part into 3 smaller parts breaks the quality (think of a movie put on tv made into multiple episodes, cheapens the feel with the breaks and the wait between episodes kills). And yes, they do CLAIM to be trying to maximize each part to be the fullest possible, but every company does that. Its marketing. No company is going to come out and say "Well we had a chance to make a high quality product... but decided not to due to x reasons."

Or in the case of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, it was released on the album A Night at the Opera which had a total length of 43:10 originally. On the other hand, the Backstreet Boys original self-titled album had a total length at 52:03, around 9 minutes more. Would you say that the Backstreet Boys album was a better album because it had more play time?

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

I'm not saying they can't continue the story in a sequel. I'm saying it's freakishly annoying to only give you one-third of the same story per game.

It would be like taking the Wheel of Time series and stripping out every chapter that's written from Perrin's point of view and selling it as a separate add-on series, without lowering the cost of the original books.

The reality is that you will buy this game like everyone else and enjoy it.

And that's why Blizzard won't bother adding in LAN play. They feel the same as you - they think nobody will follow through on their intentions.

Well, you'd be right about most people. For example, the day Modern Warfare 2 was released, the "in-game players" list on the "Boycott MW2" Steam Group page was full of people playing MW2.

And it sickened me.

You're welcome to assume I won't follow through on my intention to not buy the game; you're obviously not going to believe I'm sincere regardless of what I say.

you will wake the moronic decision to not play a game because the company that makes it wants a return on their investment.

You're seriously going to claim that adding LAN play would screw up their ROI?

That's my whole point - adding LAN play wouldn't screw up their ROI! That's why I'm not going to buy it unless they add it in - because it's not that much more effort to do it, certainly not compared to the effort of getting battle.net to work, and especially not since what you say is true:

BTW on a lan SC2 will still use local data transfer

Obviously the capability for LAN play is there, they just need to add in a local lobby rather than making you set up games through Battle.net. It's a relatively minor addition to the UI, it's not a fundamental architecture change.

In any case, if you think "it doesn't do what I want" is not a valid reason to vote with my wallet, then what would be a valid reason?

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

And presumably new units for all three sides will be added with each expansion.

... Of course meaning that if you want to keep playing multiplayer after the second game comes out, you're going to have to buy it. And then it'll happen again when the third game comes out.

See, for example, the ghost town that is non-Brood-War StarCraft 1 on Battle.net.

But since Starcraft 2 isn't complete without all three games, I don't even get the whole story unless I shell out the money for all three! At least with Starcraft 1, you got a full self-contained story spread across three campaigns, and with Brood War, you got another self-contained continuation of that story, spread across three more campaigns.

With Starcraft 2, you're going to get one-third of the story, with only one faction's side of the story. Part of what made Starcraft 1 great is that you got the story from three points of view, one for each faction. With SC2, you're going to have to wait an unspecified amount of time between getting the Zerg and Protoss segments of the story.

It would be like taking the Wheel of Time series, stripping out every chapter that's Perrin's point of view, and selling them as separate add-ons, without lowering the price of the original books. Sure, you'd still get basically the same story without the Perrin chapters, but you'd be hard-pressed to argue that you're not getting ripped off.

Re:Lost my interest

[mjwx]

There's always knowing that, after a year or so, there will be a Game of the Year Edition that includes all the expansion packs for less than the vanilla game's original price.

Looking forward to 37 game of the years in 2010. Who gives out that title anyway?

Re:Lost my interest

[fractoid]

Sure, they're comparable. Despite the semantics of who chose what path of publication, to the audience they were things that started as a single offering and were broken up into trilogies for practical purposes.

The reason they broke it up isn't that they were trying to "give you less" in some way, it was that the three stories they wanted to tell were too big to fit into one box.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

The reason they broke it up isn't that they were trying to "give you less" in some way, it was that the three stories they wanted to tell were too big to fit into one box.

Exactly - that's true of Lord of the Rings.

But that's not true of Starcraft 2. See, there is no "box". It's all just data.

They could have postponed the game more, and finished all three campaigns, and released it as one game. It's not like they would lose sales (in terms of quantity).

They'd lose revenue, because they'd be selling one game, not three.

That's what all this is about, and that's my complaint. The only reason they're splitting it is that they want more money. It has absolutely nothing to do with "fitting in one box".

Re:Lost my interest

[Anonymous Coward]

Starcraft 1 was fantastic largely due to its LAN play support (and, related to it, its ability to spawn multiplayer copies of the game for your friends), which not only let us play with our friends in large, internet-less groups, but introduced people to the game who later bought the game because they had a chance to play it for free. I'm one of those people who bought it thanks to a spawn copy (in fact I bought two copies of the game).

Largely due to its LAN support? Sorry but you're crazy. I'd bet good money that at the very least 90 percent of the people who bought SCI didn't take advantage of LAN support (and that's an incredibly conservative estimate). Owning more than one computer back then was quite rare for your average consumer (still is, really), setting up a home network was complicated enough back then and the level of the average consumers computer know-how was so low that having a home network was quite rare (plus all those cables...) and as laptop gaming was in its infancy it was only the die-hards who lugged their towers and weighty CRT monitors around to friends houses. Now, I'm one of those die-hards but you can't expect me to believe people like me made up a significant number of SCI players

They've claimed on multiple occasions that only pirates want LAN play. I'm not a pirate, yet I want LAN play. What does that reveal about their attitude toward me? It reveals that they're not interested in my money.

No, it reveals that you're in an extreme minority and thus aren't worth catering to, particularly since catering to you will make it easier to pirate multiplayer gaming which was the core experience of the first one. Blizzard is not a dumb company and knows how to make money. Just look at Diablo 3. People like me won't buy it because we have to pay for multiplayer which used to be free. You think they care? No way. They're going to make so much damn money off that game it's ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, I'll definitely miss LAN support in SCII but logically speaking their choice make sense as I doubt that any more than 5% of the audience will notice and those that care enough to take a pass on one of the biggest game releases in quite some time over this probably number well below that.

Finally, all this talk about whether the three releases will be worth 150 is all complete hypothetical nonsense given that we still don't know exactly what these releases will comprise of. Given Blizzards history of quality game making it is completely possible that they will be able to produce 150 dollars worth of gaming out of SCII. They've certainly done it many times over with WOW when you figure in the monthly fees.

Re:Lost my interest

[fractoid]

Yes, but "a campaign" isn't a fixed amount of game, and it doesn't take a fixed amount of work to produce. You're complaining about them charging three times the price for three times the work. Instead they could have cut each campaign down to fit the amount of work needed into their time budget, but they chose not to do so because they didn't want to compromise their storylines. They have every right to do that, just as (as you said before) you have every right to get annoyed about it and not buy the game.

Re:Lost my interest

[Undead Waffle]

It doesn't really matter whether Blizzard even notices. See, some of us have these things called "principles" and "values", and we stand up for them even if nobody else cares.

Blizzard wants to shove a LAN-less multiplayer game at us. That's fine, but I'm not going to buy it because I like LAN games.

It's also a demonstration on Blizzard's part that they no longer care about their own roots. Starcraft was so popular largely because of its LAN-friendly multiplayer games. I don't like it when companies abandon their roots.

Heck, Blizzard even provided spawn copies of Starcraft you could use for multiplayer games, so you could play with your friends even if they didn't have their own copies of the game. Do you think they'll be doing that with SC2? Of course not.

My decision to refuse to buy Starcraft 2 has as much to do with Blizzard's attitude as it has to do with the game itself.

Yeah Blizzard has abandoned its roots. I remember Warcraft 2 was such a great game because I could play it over 56k modem with my friend. How could they not include 56k direct connect anymore?

Re:Lost my interest

[badboy_tw2002]

If you don't have internet access, how are you posting this? Don't get me wrong, I like LAN parties as much as the next nerd, but generally the ones I go to have Internet. Its kind of mandatory now that the host provides it: chips, beer, bathroom, Internet, etc. Its not like the internet connection is going to stop LAN parties. I'm not trying to troll or harass, I'm just wondering why its such a big deal. (And no, given the length of development for the game and the deep pockets I'm sure it wouldn't have been an issue to put it in - it is for a lot of titles though as its one more thing to test).

Re:Lost my interest

[badboy_tw2002]

I felt the same way about Lord of the Rings! Bastards! Only when they finally showed all 12 hours in a row did I attend.

Re:Lost my interest

[chrismeidinger]

If the full product is actually as good as the original StarCraft, + Brood Wars, I will happily pay three times for it. Compare that to the number of games that cost $50 that are nowhere near 1/3 as good as StarCraft was. Everyone accidentally buys them from time to time (Spore anyone?) and I would rather pay through the nose for something I am sure will be awesome than waste money on crap.

Re:Lost my interest

[vegiVamp]

I can only applaud that you're voting with your wallet - that's how the economy *should* work. However, I don't agree with your original comment: they're not "pretending it's a full sequel" at all, they're being honest and telling you how they will be doing this game.

How is this different from the original StarCraft having an expansion pack that added races ?

Re:Lost my interest

[EspressoFreak]

See, some of us have these things called "principles" and "values", and we stand up for them even if nobody else cares.

Will you still be able to hold on to those "principles" and "values" after all your LAN pals tell you how awesome the game is?

Re:Lost my interest

[microTodd]

Dude, fail. This is why our political system in the US sucks. No one votes for a third-party candidate because, as you put it, "ultimately [whomever] won't notice your little boycott".

I for one applaud HeronBlademaster for doing what he thinks is right, no matter what anyone else thinks. Remember, character is how you act when no one is watching.

Re:Lost my interest

[TheMadTopher]

I can't imagine how many hours I spent playing DII online.

I can't imagine how many years I spent playing DII online.

Fixed.

Any slashdotter worth their salt spent at least 3-4 years of their life on DII. Moo moo moo.

Re:Lost my interest

[TheKidWho]

I've watched the preview matches for SCII, the game looks amazingly fun.

Also WoW has a huge story line, it was lost on 90% of the gamers however.

Re:Lost my interest

[mrrudge]

I was so looking forward to reading Lord of the Rings, but the evil capitalistic bastard$ have published a story in THREE books ! I have to pay THREE times to read the whole fcing story ! It's a shame as I really liked The Hobbit, and everything else Tolkein ever wrote, but they've gone too far with this one. I don't care if it's taken three times as long, and cost three times as much money to produce, I want my innovation in exactly the format I'm familiar with, and if not I'm going to scream blue murder on the Internets.

And whilst I'm at it, I'm also pissed that they're releasing a sequal at all, filthy money grabbing a$$holes, I've already paid for the Starcraft story when I bought the first one, and paying them again to continue it is an OUTRAGE!

May I humbly suggest that you have absolutely no idea about the unquanifiable 'enjoyment' return on your possible monetary investment, the product in question only just having gone into beta, for what may be a game you play for hundreds of hours, and are quite welcome to buy just the parts of that you want. ( Protoss! Go! )

I'm not sure what standards you think you can be upholding with your wallet as you can't have enough information yet to judge whether this is 3 * ( standard game you're happy to buy ) or 3 * ( 1/3 of standard game you're happy to buy. ) So all you can possibly be complaining about is that this isn't how it's normally done. And if you chose to use your wallet to encourage more-of-the-same, then I'm happy my wallet disagrees with you.

Re:Lost my interest

[goose-incarnated]

Exactly, they will sell the games for what they are worth. Get ready for the game of the decade, or miss it because of some false anti blizzard rant. Either way it will be a giant hit.

It might not be. After all, I don't much relish the thought of RPG elements in a RTS game. Not all of us want a WoW experience in our games.

Re:Lost my interest

[brkello]

No matter how many times you say it...no, Starcraft wasn't great because of LAN play support and spawns. It was great because it was and is still a great game with an excellent campaign and incredibly balanced multiplayer. That might be what is important to you, and why you won't buy it. But don't make a claim that having LAN support makes or breaks a game, that is just stupid.

Re:Lost my interest

[brkello]

Then he has no character since he is bragging about his awesome values on Slashdot. /sarcasm

Listen, I support boycotts too. I just think his reasons behind his boycott are either based on speculation or falsehoods.

Re:Lost my interest

[brkello]

Fine, then state it like that. Don't exaggerate how the core feature of Starcraft's popularity was LAN. Don't speculate on how the add-ons are going to be because you don't know. For me, your reasons to boycott are superficial. But don't try to win others to your side by making stuff up.

Re:Lost my interest

[brkello]

No, they aren't. They are up front about it. If they weren't up front about it, how could you know to complain about it? Do you see how your logic fails?

It is like you have convinced yourself to not buy the game...and even when the things you believe fly in the face of reality, you refuse to change your position and continue repeating the same dribble.

Re:Lost my interest

[brkello]

You have to be kidding. You don't think Blizzard is going to be putting quality in to their games. Really.

You also use horrible logic. What if it was the writers that had so much story, that it could not be put in one game. Then wouldn't it reduce quality to shorten all of it to fit in to one game? The answer is yes...that would reduce the quality of the story. If the Lord of the Rings was each 90 minutes long, wouldn't that reduce the quality of the story? In any case, IT ISN'T OUT YET. So making claims that it is going to suck because it split up is just flat out stupid. If they implement it right, it will be great. Given Blizzard's track record, I believe they will pull it off.

Re:Lost my interest

[brkello]

I think you are stupid because your logic is horrible. If you already decided you won't buy it because of LAN play, then why are you even bothering to comment? Why does it matter how they break up the campaign...YOU ALREADY KNOW YOU AREN'T GOING TO BUY IT. I am beginning to agree more with the people who are modding you troll. You either are a troll, or the type of person who can't admit when they are wrong.

Re:Lost my interest

[brkello]

WoW has tons of story...what the hell are you talking about? Cut scenes != story. Sheesh.

If Activision had any effect on Blizzard, SC II would be out 2 years ago. Blizzard can do what they want. This is quite obvious to anyone with a double digit IQ.

Re:Lost my interest

[jollyreaper]

Build up enough of a rage meter on your customers, and they'll start refusing to buy your products. I refused to buy L4D2 for similar reasons, though I'm sure it's a perfectly good game.

As I recall, that was an even bigger dick move because you bought the first game with the expectation that the missing pieces were going to be released as free DLC over the next year, then they said all of the missing stuff was going to be in the sequel. So you basically paid top dollar for the privilege of playing an incomplete beta.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

LotR was never marketed as just one movie telling the whole story; SC2, however, was originally supposed to be one game with three campaigns.

LotR was three movies for convenience and manageability; logistically, it's near impossible to make a 12-hour movie because nobody wants to sit through a 12-hour movie.

SC2 was split into three so they could make more money; there's no logistical reason it can't be one game, because games by nature are long and can be saved and resumed as desired. It was purely a financial decision.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

It's different because Brood War was never originally marketed as part of the core game.

Starcraft 2 was originally supposed to be one game with three campaigns. They split it when they realized they could make more money that way. There's no logistical reason it can't all be one game.

While I understand the attitude, I don't like it.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

Sure... after all, I bought a lifetime subscription to Star Trek Online, so I've always got something to do, and I have a metric crapton of other games I can play with them when we get together.

Starcraft 2 will probably turn out be a great game, but it will not be the only game worth playing.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

Link please. No seriously, I want to know where they've said this cause I've never heard it.

I posted two quotes here.

Re:Lost my interest

[xep]

I'm not saying they can't continue the story in a sequel. I'm saying it's freakishly annoying to only give you one-third of the same story per game.

It would be like taking the Wheel of Time series and stripping out every chapter that's written from Perrin's point of view and selling it as a separate add-on series, without lowering the cost of the original books.

Orson Scott Card did it with "Ender's Shadow"; which was "Ender's Game" told from a different character's point of view. I didn't feel cheated by either book (admittedly it's a stretch to consider this similar to the SC2 issue, but it was your analogy).

Aside from that; lack of LAN play seems like a perfectly valid reason not to buy a game. It's not a good reason to develop a persecution complex, though.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

Ender's Shadow was conceived long after Ender's Game had been published. Starcraft 2 has always been said to include three campaigns, until they decided to split it into three games.

If Blizzard published Starcraft 2's Terran Campaign, then a few years later realized, "Oh wait, we can release other campaigns too", then you'd have something comparable to what OSC did with Ender's Shadow.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

I've seen so-called "expansions" priced the same as the game they're "expanding"... just saying.

Re:Lost my interest

[WiiVault]

Uggghh. When did being an apologist for the man get to be so trendy?

Re:Lost my interest

[Loomismeister]

"Not all of us want a WoW experience in our games."
Ok not all of you, just the largest share of gamers any game has ever had.

Re:Lost my interest

[SvnLyrBrto]

Looks to me like he was marked as "troll" as a -1 "disagree" mod. I don't see anything wrong or insincere with his point, and I mostly agree with it. In my case, though, I'll eventually pick up a copy down the road when it's in "Battle Chest" form at a discount price.

The way I see it, about 80% of the enjoyment I got out of SC1 was on LAN play. And no, I don't care about my ranking on the battle.net ladder, I don't care about what achievements they may award me, and I don't care how clever Blizzard thinks they are at matching me with some stranger with an equivalent skill level. That 80% was from private LAN play with my friends.

So with only 20% of the value of the game left... actually 1/3rd of 20% of the value... I'm not going to be rushing out to pay full price.

Re:Lost my interest

[goose-incarnated]

I'd bet that the biggest player-base of the current starcraft play it for the RTS game elements. The WoW players know where to find WoW

Re:Lost my interest

[Gaffod]

Unless I misunderstand, you can already play with people who bought all 3 campaigns even if you have bought only one. They don't even limit you to 1 race like Dawn of War did.

As for LAN, everyone seems to be upset about this but when Starcraft came out, people had 56k modems and seconds-long lag times. Nor was internet access almost-constant like it is now- you'd "connect to the internet" when you needed to use it.

It's hard to find a connection slow enough to seriously lag your game (unless you're downloading pr0n in the background, or playing on the server on the other side of the planet) nowadays. Honestly, I'm at a loss thinking of a situation where you'd absolutely have to use LAN. One is if you ARE pirating, but yeah. The other is the introducing people to the game angle, but in that case just pirate it and play on the cracked servers (which will doubtless be available within weeks of release and probably even this beta).

I understand your concern over principles and what not, but it's not like Blizzard took out single-player completely or something radical like that. You still can play multiplayer, but now you have to have an internet connection. Like I said, that would have been a bummer in the SC1 days, but when's the last time you saw a machine that can run SC2 and yet has no internet? Your complaint is frivolous and inconsequent.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

Unless I misunderstand, you can already play with people who bought all 3 campaigns even if you have bought only one.

Unless they patch the earlier games to include units added in later games - and they have said they're going to add units in later games - then no, that won't be possible.

Historically, no Blizzard game has been compatible in multiplayer with their expansion packs, so that would be rather unprecedented.

I understand your concern over principles and what not, but it's not like Blizzard took out single-player completely or something radical like that.

Yeah, it could be worse.

Re:Lost my interest

[Gaffod]

Well if new units can break compatibility then they haven't made the expansions compatible at all, have they? And I believe their intention is to make them compatible.

Patching the units in is perfectly reasonable by the way, again they did it in DoW.

As for the link, well, first off these are different companies with different track records regarding respecting the customer. What's more, Ubisoft messes with single player too- I don't think Starcraft 2 phones home for *single player*. If it does, wow, screw you Blizzard.

However, as it is, all I can see is that they removed LAN, an unnecessary, obsolete, redundant feature and now everybody is making an awful lot of noise as if it's the end of the world. If you don't like the AC2 DRM, why not complain about AC2 first? Did Blizzard even explicitly state they removed LAN because it makes piracy easier?

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

However, as it is, all I can see is that they removed LAN, an unnecessary, obsolete, redundant feature and now everybody is making an awful lot of noise as if it's the end of the world.

I see you've fallen into the classic trap of thinking that "I don't need it anymore" is equivalent to "nobody needs it anymore".

It's not really worth trying to argue against people who think that way, so I guess I'll stop trying.

If you don't like the AC2 DRM, why not complain about AC2 first?

I've known about Starcraft 2 longer than I've known about Assassin's Creed 2.

Furthermore, I did complain about Assassin's Creed 2. I realize AC2's DRM is stronger than SC2's, which is why I said "it could be worse".

Blizzard's stated purpose in removing LAN play was to combat piracy. Of course removing it won't help reduce piracy at all, but why should that matter? *eye roll*

Re:Lost my interest

[Gaffod]

Yes, I may have fallen into that trap. If that is the case, all I am asking for is an example of someone who would actually, seriously need LAN. (And I don't mean the one guy on the planet who happens to not have internet)

If that's Blizzard's stated response, well, they are indeed douchebags for taking stupid measures to "solve" a stupid problem.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

Here are two quotes in particular showing Blizzard's attitude toward people who want LAN play.

"Leech to society" is one of them.

If that is the case, all I am asking for is an example of someone who would actually, seriously need LAN. (And I don't mean the one guy on the planet who happens to not have internet)

Uh... so you want an example, but you refuse to accept one of the most important ones? Just because everyone you know has internet access doesn't mean the people who don't are irrelevant. Same trap as before.

At any rate, it's not just about someone not having internet at all; it's about people who have metered internet, or people having intermittent internet. For that matter, it's about why should my LAN games depend on my ISP not flaking out at random. Or why should my LAN games depend on Battle.net staying online.

If I want to play Starcraft 2 with my wife, as it is right now, well, if Comcast's service is down, we don't get to play. If Battle.net is down for maintenance, we don't get to play. Not because of some inherent architectural limitation in the game, but because Blizzard wants to know about every second I'm playing the game with someone else.

It seriously would not be hard to cache stats and stuff for our local LAN games until an internet connection is available again. One would assume that's what Starcraft 2's single-player does with achievements and stats if there's no internet connection for a time.

So rather than my gaming time being chosen by when I have free time, it's also dictated by my ISP cooperating, and Battle.net's servers cooperating, and everything in between cooperating, even if all I want is a LAN game with a person sitting six feet from me.

And then there's the whole longevity angle. Who's to say Blizzard will still be around in a decade? Starcraft has lasted 13 years and is still a favorite, so it's reasonable to expect Starcraft 2 to last about as long. Why should my Starcraft 2 gaming sessions in 2018 depend on Blizzard staying in business?

All of that risk, when a minor effort on Blizzard's part - a very minor effort - would make the risk go away? No thank you.

Re:Lost my interest

[DarkEmpath]

too little content for the money

If you ordered a pizza, and it was missing two thirds of what you expected, would you be happy?

"Sure we didn't give you any olives or pepperoni, but we gave you three times as many mushrooms, so it's just as good!"

Re:Lost my interest

[thickdiick]

If you know you have the best game out there, it's not unreasonable to have people pay before they can use it.

Re:Lost my interest

[HeronBlademaster]

Maybe they think that's the case, sure. But how am I, the buyer, supposed to know whether it's worth buying?

If there's no way to try it without buying it first, then on what basis should I risk my $50? On their past games? That's the problem - they're straying from what I believe made the original so great, so I can't base my purchase on that.

Would you suggest I simply take their word for it? Why should I do that, when they're treating me like a pirate for wanting LAN support? On what basis should I trust their word?

I can't borrow it from someone; from all appearances, the game will be tied to your battle.net account, so to borrow the game (even in single player!) I'd have to have access to the lender's battle.net account.

Screenshots and video previews are terrible measures of the worth of a game.

All I have left is what people say about the game. But that's not reliable either; I find a lot of popular games to be mediocre at best.

The only way to really know whether a game is worth buying is to try it. That's what demos are for. Has Blizzard indicated they'll be releasing a demo?

I can't wait to...

[Supurcell]

I can't wait to fire it up.

Re:I can't wait to...

[metatheism]

Me neither, and I'm waiting on you!

Re:I can't wait to...

[clintonmonk]

Well, I'm proceedin'.

Re:I can't wait to...

[HeronBlademaster]

Not if you want to fire it up... with Terrans, it's Supply Depots.

Re:I can't wait to...

[metatheism]

I've had a change of heart. Let's take it slow.

Re:I can't wait to...

[clintonmonk]

Okay, but it's getting cold. Wanna turn up the heat?

Re:I can't wait to...

[Sir_Lewk]

Sure sounds good. Need a light?

Re:I can't wait to...

[VRisaMetaphor]

Stop poking me!

FOR THE HORDE!

[rehtonAesoohC]

Oh wait, wrong game...

Entaro Tassadar! Ahh yeah that's the right game. Does anyone know if the closed beta is under a restrictive NDA?

Also, knowing Blizzard's excessive tinkering, and the fact that we are already almost halfway through the first half (50% of 50%) of 2010, I find it highly unlikely that the game will be released "in the first half of 2010."

Re:FOR THE HORDE!

[Kratisto]

There is no NDA.

Post 6: Just in case any of us want to create some videos for YouTube ... may we share any replays?

Zhydaris: There will be no NDA.

( http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=112115 )

Re:FOR THE HORDE!

[Aggrajag]

Quote from the forums

We're pleased to announce that we have decided to lift the confidential nature of the StarCraft: II Beta Test. This means that beta testers are free to show and discuss the game with your friends, as well as take screenshots, record gameplay videos, etc. So feel free to share that amazing game you just played. Enjoy!

Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe people still give a damn about this game after all the bull they're trying to pull. Only one race in the story mode? No LAN play? More internet-required-use-our-new-online-service crap? Seriously? I mean, up until the news about this game and Diablo III being neutered, Blizzard was a great PC game dev. This is the point where people need to send a message, but I know pointing this out is about as effective as whizzing into the wind. It blows my mind how much disrespect and manipulation people are willing to put up with.

Re:Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[Kratisto]

They don't put up with it. Intrusive DRM causes people to skip games or pirate them. SCII is one of the few games that has enough hype to overcome this sort of thing.

Re:Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[chrysrobyn]

The message I'm going to send to Blizzard is also quite simple.

Support my Mac (yet again) with another great game (yet again) and I'll buy it on release day (yet again). If my internet is down, I don't even want to touch my computer, so that's no big deal for me. I logged hundreds if not thousands of hours playing the original Starcraft with the woman who ended up being my wife.

With the number of people who will want to play in a LAN, you know the majority of the traffic isn't going to be routed through B.N servers where they'll have to pay for the bandwidth. Most networked apps in this NAT age use a variety of methods to try to learn a real IP address to connect to each other. The first is always "self-reported IP". So, SC2 would hypothetically connect to B.N, authenticate, and then keep 100% of traffic on the LAN, reporting the results of the play to the servers. That way, if some college kid spends the whole year playing on his lan, and then goes home to play against me on B.N, he's got some ladder rank that's going to put him about where he belongs (which is honestly a completely different realm than 33 year old me).

Re:Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[Monkeedude1212]

1 Race per game - episodic like content - helps pace storylines (No one complains that a season of 24 takes 24 episodes, do they?)

As for the lack of LAN play - this kind of thing doesn't stop World of Warcraft from functioning. Lets face it, If you've got 11 million guaranteed buyers based on the fact that they meet the requirements and want to play your game - you'd implement it the same way Blizzard is to maximize sales.

Re:Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[Vaphell]

it mainly helps to 'encourage' customers to fill company coffers more than they should.
TV series are not to be set as an example but unfortunately this is what will happen - games will be 10% substance and 90% of filler crap to keep players occupied until some new idea comes up.

and comparing sc2 where one player hosts the map to a fullblown mmog with a massive amount of data to serve doesn't make much sense. Battle.net is just another point of possible failure you don't really need to play on lan. Also you overestimate numbers of wow-to-sc2 converts. WoW has much more appeal for your average casual player than sc2 that will be completely dominated by exSc1/Wc3 players and RTS as a genre has much smaller base than countless FPShooters or even hack and slash Diablo clones.

Re:Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[Monkeedude1212]

I don't think I'm overestimating at all. 11 Million WoW subscribers means probably 5 million SC2 purchasers right off the bat. Than the SC1 avids and WC3 players going in for SC2, and the professionals in Korea and such... 11 Million is not an unreasonable amount to expect.

Re:Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[Kenoli]

The extreme (and continued) success of the original game more than justifies the excitement for SC2.
Besides, all the supposed problems you mentioned are non-issues.

Dividing a large body of content into multiple releases is a reasonable thing to do. The mere fact that the first part is only told from the Terran perspective doesn't mean anything. They could have just as easily used the classic three race split and still gone on to release two expansions.

The whole no LAN thing likely doesn't matter to a vast majority of players. I don't think this requires much explaining. It essentially comes down to LANs being an archaic method of playing games with others.

Re:Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[CorporateSuit]

I won't buy an Activision game as long as Bobby Kotick is CEO.

Re:Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[Vaphell]

even shit in a can with a blizzard logo slapped on it would sell 5 million copies so targetting wow crowd is negligible imo.

Re:Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[mjwx]

Support my Mac (yet again)

Outvoted, give me LAN support and forget about 4% of the market of which only a tiny percentage would be gamers.

Forget Mac support, anyone who buys one for gaming is certifiably mad.

Re:Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[vcgodinich]

I'll make my life less fun to prove a point no one cares about.

Re:Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[Some Bitch]

With the number of people who will want to play in a LAN, you know the majority of the traffic isn't going to be routed through B.N servers where they'll have to pay for the bandwidth.

Indeed, Blizzard have already stated that traffic between clients on the same LAN will stay on the LAN so ping times etc are a non-issue, Battle.Net connectivity will be required for authentication but your game traffic will remain on the LAN if there are no remote players.

Re:Incomplete StarCraft - LAN Play = NO PURCHASE

[CorporateSuit]

I'll spend my time NOT getting kicked in the balls and telling the person "Thank you sir, may I please have another?" simply to play a game. Especially not when I already have several dozen strewn about my house that I still need to get to.

And it should matter to shareholders of Activision that their current CEO is a walking PR nightmare.

disclaimer bigger than the article

[RichMan]

Nice the disclaimer at the end is bigger than the article.

Article == 338 words
Identifier == 88 words
Disclaimer == 393 words

So if nothing happens in the end they are coverd.

Two questions....

[Itninja]

....that I have yet to get a firm answer on:

Will SC2 support true LAN play, or just that pseudo-LAN thing where one have to 'authenticate' first?

Will SC2 support multi-core systems? I got this fancy quad-core system and core 1 thru 3 get pissed when core 0 is being pegged.

Re:Two questions....

[TikiTDO]

1. No, this has been answered plenty of times. Blizzard obviously has no interest in catering to the small percentage of the population that wants to play multiplayer with no internet connection.

2. I would imagine that the answer is yes, though that is just my speculation. This game has been in development for a while, with what is sure to be quite an impressive team. Further, even the relatively resource light WoW supports multi-core execution. Blizzard would have to try quite hard to fail this criteria.

Re:Two questions....

[HeckRuler]

Blizzard obviously has no interest in catering to the small percentage of the population that wants to play multiplayer with no internet connection.

Blizzard apparently only wants to cater to the population that's willing to bend over and ask "mother may I" each time they boot up. I'm not too worried though, this too shall be cracked. 20 years from now, I'll still be able to play the "good old stuff" with my friends thanks to crackers.

Re:Two questions....

[Itninja]

That's too bad. Not for me...I have a great 50Mb connection...but for just about anyone living in a rural area or who wants to take their laptops camping and have an ad-hoc lan party in the middle of nowhere.

Re:Two questions....

[moderatorrater]

Small percentage of the population? I've never met someone who played Starcraft and didn't play it LAN.

Re:Two questions....

[HeronBlademaster]

Blizzard obviously has no interest in catering to the small percentage of the population that wants to play multiplayer with no internet connection.

They've obviously also not done any market research on how big that percentage of the population might be, and I doubt you have either.

Out of me and the dozen friends that play Starcraft, exactly zero of us play on Battle.net if we don't have to. During high school, all of us regularly played without access to an internet connection - one still regularly gets a group together in a local church gymnasium to play Starcraft LAN games, and there's definitely no internet access there. I guess they'll stick with the original even after the sequel comes out, because they won't be able to play the sequel together.

The "small percentage" is a lot larger than you think it is. Starcraft II will not be nearly as popular if it prevents playing multiplayer without internet access.

Re:Two questions....

[Hatta]

Blizzard obviously has no interest in catering to the small percentage of the population that wants to play multiplayer with no internet connection

The percentage of the population that wants to be able play multiplayer with no internet connection is roughly equivalent to the percentage of the population who has had an internet outage. That is, just about everyone.

Re:Two questions....

[TikiTDO]

I certainly have not done the research about the size of this segment; it is a question that does not really affect me in the slightest. However, to say that Blizzard has not is bordering on insulting. They have put in a ridiculous amount of resources into this game, and any sort of business wants to make sure such an investment will net at least some return. Of course they would spend at least a bit of time looking into this matter, especially since it keeps cropping up on popular tech sites such as this one. My statement stems from a logical understanding of how businesses operate.

In other words, I said small percentage because it is clear that Blizzard views it sufficiently small not to heed their calls for LAN play. What I, or you for that matter, believe about the size of this market segment is irrelevant. Consider, your sample size is a group of friends playing in a church gymnasium, something measured in individuals, not millions. By comparison, the only people I know that used LAN play were those that used it to get around the latency hacks inherent in the original StarCraft battle.net implementation.

However, regardless of any other considerations, StarCraft II will be extremely popular because it is a Blizzard game. Of the few that really consider LAN play an issue many will get the game anyway, because their friends will have it. You would have to try a lot harder than above to convince me the remainder would net Blizzard more income than opening up LAN play, and inviting people to play without paying for the game.

Re:Two questions....

[TikiTDO]

We must know different people. Few of my friends would suggest dealing with an Internet outage by playing a LAN deathmatch in StarCraft II. Generally the first point of action would be to call the ISP, and figure out what the hell happened to the internets. Afterwards, if my friends happened to be present when the outage occurred we would be more likely go somewhere, or spend some time talking, or any number of alternate activities that do not necessarily require a network connection. Worst case, one (or all) of us could probably full out a phone that supports tethering if we were really that desperate for gaming action.

Re:Two questions....

[TikiTDO]

Before you go any further please read your statement, and consider how utterly unlikely this sort of situation is. You would need to be a special level of hardcore to want to have an ad-hoc SC2 LAN party while camping. I know many gamers, and I cannot think of a single person that would think this was a good idea for a whole myriad of reasons.

For rural areas, any sort of internet connection should be sufficient. They may not have your 50mbps connection, but I'm sure they could at least pull a dialup connection long enough to authenticate.

Re:Two questions....

[TikiTDO]

Eventually, of course it will be cracked. You cannot design a system that is perfectly secure, unless this system is going to languish in a locked room for eternity. The question that matters is how long will it take for this system to be cracked. I imagine they made it as hard as possible, so for the short term they should be secure.

Re:Two questions....

[HeronBlademaster]

Of course they would spend at least a bit of time looking into this matter, especially since it keeps cropping up on popular tech sites such as this one.

I still disagree; Blizzard has repeatedly made statements which effectively convey their feeling that the only people who want LAN play are pirates.

Neither I nor any of my friends (the aforementioned group of LAN players) have pirated Starcraft; many of us, including myself, have purchased multiple copies of Starcraft.

For Blizzard to claim that the only people who want LAN play are pirates betrays a complete lack of market research on the subject, and their disdain for the very group of gamers which made their first game so popular.

Perhaps I'm wrong - perhaps LAN play really wasn't very important to Starcraft 1's success (though I think you'll find that the majority of Starcraft fans will agree that LAN was integral to SC1's success). But for them to call me a pirate for wanting LAN play - a feature that, for me, has logged by far the most hours of use in the first Starcraft - is insulting at best! Why should I buy their product when they insult potential customers like that?

Of the few that really consider LAN play an issue many will get the game anyway, because their friends will have it

"Few"? If only one tenth of these people decide not to buy the game based on the lack of LAN play, that's at least half a million in revenue (assuming Blizzard earns $25 for every $50 sale, the number goes much higher if they get more, like with digital sales) - and that's certainly not the only list of angry Starcraft fans out there. Let's say it takes two programmers one year to implement - an estimate I think is extremely conservative, given that very little of the work would be outside of the game creation/game joining mechanics that happen before the game ever starts. If we assume salaries of $100k/yr per programmer, Blizzard's net gain is at least $300k.

The cost to implement is fixed. The only variable is the number of people who pass on the game because it doesn't support their favorite (perhaps only desired) game mode. Given the number of people who really want LAN play, it really makes sense to implement LAN play even on the chance that it'll earn them $300k.

But let's say you're right - let's say all the people complaining are just going to go buy it anyway. Doesn't Blizzard claim to love its gamers? Doesn't Blizzard love fostering good will among its fans?

I would wager that Blizzard could hammer out solid LAN support for Starcraft II by throwing a five-man programming team at it for a month, maybe two. Are they really so desperate to pinch pennies that they can't spare the effort? If they actually cared about their fans, and about providing the best gaming experience, they would do it, even if it earned them no more money, because so many of their fans want it.

No, TikiTDO, the real reason they don't want to do it has nothing to do with the actual cost to implement it. It's because their corporate overlords have convinced them that only pirates want LAN play, and that pirates have to be attacked at any and all costs. This is a trend we're seeing in the gaming industry as a whole, not just in any particular company. See also, Invasive DRM.

You would have to try a lot harder than above to convince me the remainder would net Blizzard more income than opening up LAN play, and inviting people to play without paying for the game.

I've given a rough guess above. Obviously I don't have market research with which to "prove" anything. All I can really do is vote with my wallet, and that's what I'm going to do.

In any case, my boycott is only partially based on their refusal to include LAN play. My objections extend to include their attitude toward those of us who really want the feature. If they want to treat me like a pirate, well, they're going to get the same income they'd get if I were a pirate - which is sad, because I'm not.

Re:Two questions....

[Vaphell]

it's often easier to prepare enough space in garrage/basement and providing internet for many people there can be tricky. With true lan you can set up LAN anywhere with a router/switch without worrying where to get internet pipe from.

Re:Two questions....

[TikiTDO]

...

I still disagree; Blizzard has repeatedly made statements which effectively convey their feeling that the only people who want LAN play are pirates.

Neither I nor any of my friends (the aforementioned group of LAN players) have pirated Starcraft; many of us, including myself, have purchased multiple copies of Starcraft.

For Blizzard to claim that the only people who want LAN play are pirates betrays a complete lack of market research on the subject, and their disdain for the very group of gamers which made their first game so popular.

Perhaps I'm wrong - perhaps LAN play really wasn't very important to Starcraft 1's success (though I think you'll find that the majority of Starcraft fans will agree that LAN was integral to SC1's success). But for them to call me a pirate for wanting LAN play - a feature that, for me, has logged by far the most hours of use in the first Starcraft - is insulting at best! Why should I buy their product when they insult potential customers like that?

There is another possibility here that you may not be considering. It is easy to release a blanket statement, especially for a press release. However, it would not serve their interests to say, "While a lot of people used LAN play to get around copy protection, especially in the latter part of the games life, there is a segment of the market that used it for perfectly reasonable LAN parties." I figured that this sort of detail would be inherent. I don't think Blizzard wanted to call you or your friends pirates. It just would not serve their interests to release a detailed analysis on gaming trends.

...

"Few"? If only one tenth of these people decide not to buy the game based on the lack of LAN play, that's at least half a million in revenue (assuming Blizzard earns $25 for every $50 sale, the number goes much higher if they get more, like with digital sales) - and that's certainly not the only list of angry Starcraft fans out there. Let's say it takes two programmers one year to implement - an estimate I think is extremely conservative, given that very little of the work would be outside of the game creation/game joining mechanics that happen before the game ever starts. If we assume salaries of $100k/yr per programmer, Blizzard's net gain is at least $300k.

The cost to implement is fixed. The only variable is the number of people who pass on the game because it doesn't support their favorite (perhaps only desired) game mode. Given the number of people who really want LAN play, it really makes sense to implement LAN play even on the chance that it'll earn them $300k.

This really gets pretty deep into personal and engineering analysis. How many of those signatures are real individuals. Of those how many are willing to pass up the game because of lack of LAN play. Would any reconsider once enough of their friends start playing? How many have concerns rooted in the (rather common) belief that you will need to maintain a connection to battle.net throughout the entire game? How many people would use LAN play for piracy? Is this number bigger than the number that would skip over the game because it is lacking LAN play? On the engineering side, how many attack vectors would be introduced into a game with the addition of a LAN play component, especially if it was hacked in by a low level engineer. Is their core engine infrastructure compatible with the type of code you would need for LAN play, or is it tied into battle.net (Not an unreasonable assumption given how much they've been hyping it)? Would implementing this push the release date of the program? Would there be significantly more QA to verify this feature? And those are just off the top of my head. I'm sure a Blizzard employee could come up with a list ten times as long.

But let's say you're righ

Re:Two questions....

[TikiTDO]

If the actual game works in a P2P mesh, then you would only really need a small pipe to allow the 8 or 10 (whatever the max number of players is) people to log into their accounts. As long as you have wireless on the premises, and at least one computer able to connect to it you can just share the connection among everyone that needs to log in.

Yes, there may be situations where you really are left with no connection, but Blizzard probably feels those are sufficiently rare to be ignored.

Re:Two questions....

[HeronBlademaster]

You're probably right about... pretty much everything.

I do realize I'll be missing out on what will most likely be a great game. However, months ago I said I would boycott the game if it didn't include LAN play, and I feel that if I say I'm going to do something, I'd better follow through, or my word means nothing.

Nothing angered me more than all the PC gamers who joined the "Boycott MW2 until it gets Dedicated Servers" group on Steam, only to jump into the game the moment it was released. There are screenshots out there of the MW2 "online players" list where 50% of them are in-game in MW2...

Re:Two questions....

[TikiTDO]

I can respect that. So few people have the willpower to carry out on their intentions when it inconveniences them. There will always be other games, or you could always put a statute of limitation on your boycott. After all, it's so much more fulfilling to get a game for $20 when everyone else paid $50.

Re:Two questions....

[thesandtiger]

Wow, you suck at statistics. If I were to take the same absurdly self-centered approach to stats that you do, 100% of /. posters are city-dwelling white females in their late 30's who surf the web with their feet resting on a dog. Oh, and 50% of all dogs are female grayhounds, 50% are male pitbulls, and 100% of them love it when I use them as ottomans.

Pretty much everyone who matters to Blizzard as a customer is going to have always-on Internet access, and the whole Battle.net thing isn't a worry. Blizzard is, generally speaking, not a groundbreaking company - they take things everyone else has done and make it REALLY shiny; I don't imagine, given their track record, that they're putting out one of the most anticipated sequels in gaming history and making it bnet only as a kind of trial; I'm reasonably sure that they've spent some of their buckets of cash on researching the likely outcome of the multi-player bnet only decision.

Re:Two questions....

[Loomismeister]

No one cares if you change your mind. It was an understandable misconception about LAN play that caused you to want to boycott it, and now that blizzard basically crushed every one of your arguments -- you should go buy the game. There is literally no reason why you should be upset with anything they are doing in terms of multiplayer and LANning , unless you are really out in the middle of no where and can't get internet. (Blizzard already said they would work on sending private workable copies to people who legitimately cannot get internet)

Any anger about lack of isolated from the internet play is rooted in fallacy and misconception; the general public (along with most people who signed that petition you linked) will buy this great game. For good reason too!

Re:Two questions....

[HeronBlademaster]

Blizzard already said they would work on sending private workable copies to people who legitimately cannot get internet

Source?

Re:Two questions....

[marshzd]

So, I'm interested where Blizzard said they would work on sending private workable copies to people who can't have internet. That seems like a lot of effort for the smallest percentage of their market that could possibly exist (no source, just speculating, it's probably up there with fat hermaphrodites with a flog of seagulls haircut and only one nostril).

It'd be easier just to allow open LAN play than make that kind of effort for people. Is there an authentication process to verify you don't have internet? Do they travel to your house? Do they check your checking/credit card accounts for payments to an ISP? I mean, this is possibly the strangest deployment of a game that I've ever heard of.

Re:Two questions....

[thesandtiger]

Except you pretty much did. You stated that Blizzard made this move without doing any research, and as support for that statement you put forth that you and a dozen buddies play the game only via LANs. Oh, and one of them sometimes plays with a few people in his church via LAN as well. I'm really pretty sure they did spend at least a couple of bucks looking into what a pretty major decision like this might cost them, and I'm more confident that the numbers of an organization that has potentially billions of dollars riding on something are going to be a little more reliable than random slashdot guy, ya know?

Where are the public statements about only pirates wanting LAN play, by the way? If they did make that statement, then I do agree, THAT is a major misunderstanding of the market, and pretty stupid on top of it.

And, for the record, Blizzard has ALWAYS been about making as much money as possible. In the past (and still, as far as I can tell) they try to do that by providing the best/most polished experience to their customers - I'm willing to wait and see how they do this before I begin the doomcrying. I'm willing to bet that they took into consideration some of the more frequent problems people face with their internet connections.

Re:Two questions....

[HeronBlademaster]

Where are the public statements about only pirates wanting LAN play, by the way?

Here's one:

"We don't currently plan to support LAN play with StarCraft II, as we are building Battle.net to be the ideal destination for multiplayer gaming with StarCraft II and future Blizzard Entertainment games. While this was a difficult decision for us, we felt that moving away from LAN play and directing players to our upgraded Battle.net service was the best option to ensure a quality multiplayer experience with StarCraft II and safeguard against piracy." (Emphasis mine.)

LAN play is no less of a "quality" multiplayer experience than... the exact same thing plus authentication over battle.net before the game begins, which is what they want us to do, so their first statement is marketing BS.

That leaves us with "we're leaving out LAN play to safeguard against piracy."

I wonder, what statistics do they have that show them LAN play increased piracy in the original?

Oh, right. Starcraft encouraged people to play together without everyone owning a copy, because Blizzard provided spawn copies.

Or how about this one:

"As mentioned by Rob Pardo in interviews, piracy is a serious problem and often times tie in closely with LAN."

"We would not take out LAN if we did not feel we could offer players something better. Don’t be a leech to society, innovation, and further awesome creations." (Emphasis mine.)

So... they're blaming piracy problems largely on LAN support. Oh, and if you want LAN support, you're a leech to society and innovation.

It's that sort of attitude that I find repugnant.

Re:Two questions....

[thesandtiger]

I could see them trying to improve the anti-cheating protection, and I'm sure it will help to reduce piracy, but it does seem to be a decidedly un-Blizzard-like approach. Thanks for providing that.

Re:Two questions....

[HeckRuler]

Right, and I'm still playing X-Com and Dues-Ex (along with DungeonCrawl). Furthermore, the better the game is, the more crackers will work on it, the faster it will be cracked. It's like an underground critics organization.

Re:Two questions....

[TikiTDO]

True, but that does not mean it will be cracked within a month, or even a year. There will doubtlessly need to be a significant reverse engineering effort necessary before work on a custom server could even begin. I would not be too surprised if Blizzard added some extra security into the game to verify the authenticity of the server (Public/Private key ping for instance), which would make life difficult for crackers yet again.

Obviously nothing they can do is truly immune to circumvention, but for each new measure you can add a bit of time that it will take to get around it. That said, who knows how extensive their security scheme is, and how many holes it has. It is entirely possible that you will see custom servers a week in, but I find that quite unlikely. Conversely, it is also possible that by the time custom servers come out, we'll all be playing StarCraft III.

My wife's on fire

[mafian911]

Or was it my life for A'jur?

Re:My wife's on fire

[oneplus999]

Or was it my life for A'jur?

aiur, actually, was the name of the protoss homeworld. i always thought dying dragoons sounded like they were saying "fuck you".

Re:My wife's on fire

[eggnet]

I always thought it sounded like: my life for hire.

Oblig Alien Over...

[Bobfrankly1]

I for one welcome our zerg..."You need more Overlords".

Re:Oblig Alien Over...

[HeckRuler]

Really? Do you realize how many overlords slashdot has by this point?

Re:Oblig Alien Over...

[binarylarry]

Yeah well, how many zerg could there be?

Re:Oblig Alien Over...

[OverlordQ]

Assuming we were assigned named in alphabetical order, at least 17.

Can anyone post system requirements?

[Bobfrankly1]

Can anyone post system requirements for those of us unable to reach particular sites?

Re:Can anyone post system requirements?

[daveywest]

The minimum system requirements for the Starcraft II Beta are as follows:

PC Minimum Requirements:
Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1/Windows 7
2.2 Ghz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
1 GB system RAM/1.5 GB for Vista and Windows 7
128 MB NVidia GeForce 6600 GT/ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card
1024x768 minimum display resolution
4 GB free hard space (Beta)
Broadband connection

*Note* the final requirements for Starcraft II have not yet been determined. Due to ongoing development the minimum requirements listed above are subject to change at any time. During this phase a Mac version will NOT be available, please check back.

Re:Can anyone post system requirements?

[Rewind]

Can anyone post system requirements for those of us unable to reach particular sites?

sure:
PC Minimum Requirements:
Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1/Windows 7
2.2 Ghz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
1 GB system RAM/1.5 GB for Vista and Windows 7
128 MB NVidia GeForce 6600 GT/ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card
1024x768 minimum display resolution
4 GB free hard space
Broadband connection

Re:Can anyone post system requirements?

[Ihmhi]

What the fuck, mods? He posts this five minutes later that the sibling post and he gets modded Redundant? Mod the parent up and out of the crapper you trigger-happy shitsticks!

small percentage of the population that wants to p

[Joe The Dragon]

small percentage of the population that wants to play multiplayer with no internet connection?

how about tournament play????

the last thing that you need is some kind of a internet hiccup to mess up a tournament.

System requirements

[Paradigm_Complex]

According to Shacknews the minimum system requirements are as follows:

PC Minimum Requirements:

* Windows XP SP3/Vista SP1/Windows 7
* 2.2 Ghz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon processor
* 1 GB system RAM/1.5 GB for Vista and Windows 7
* 128 MB NVidia GeForce 6600 GT/ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card
* 1024x768 minimum display resolution
* 4 GB free hard space (Beta)
* Broadband connection

Nice to know my trusty old 3.0Ghz P4 with 1GB RAM and an NVidia GeForce 6800GT is still available for friends who can't bring their box to Starcraft LANs! Well, assuming Blizzard allows it.

Submitting system specs for beta via Wine

[CyDharttha]

In order to sign up for possible beta access, you have to download a program that sends your system specs to your battle.net account. The system test application for Windows worked without issue in Wine, allowing me to upload my specs and be considered for beta access.

System Requirements, Screenshots, etc...

[Shohat]

Howdy. Bit self-promotional... but.. Read my blog. It is the best StarCraft Blog on the web.
I am in the beta, all the info that was published this month (including the massive SC2 Beta FAQ) is there, system requirements, screenshots, and will soon be posting replays/videos. Currently 500 users online, so I can handle bit of slashdotting :)
Cheers.

Re:System Requirements, Screenshots, etc...

[Ka D'Argo]

um.. if you're in closed beta, and you're releasing all this beta information, aren't your breaking the NDA you signed when you got accepted into closed beta?

Re:System Requirements, Screenshots, etc...

[Ka D'Argo]

Thats a first for me then.. most games tend to have an NDA, I figured the juggernaut that is Blizzard certainly would.

Define "small percentage"?

[Itninja]

An April 2009 survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project shows 63% of American homes have broadband Internet access. So those remaining 37% (tens of millions of people) are politely asked to not buy this game I guess. Digital divide FTW!

Re:Define "small percentage"?

[Galestar]

And a Feb 2010 survey made up by yours truly says that those 37% are exactly the same people who would never {head of/buy/give two shits about} Starcraft 2 even if they did have internet.

Re:Define "small percentage"?

[Itninja]

Yeah I am sure that there are no teenage boys in there at all :/

Re:Define "small percentage"?

[TikiTDO]

If a teenage boy lives in a house without internet in this day and age he probably has bigger issue than playing StarCraft II

Re:Define "small percentage"?

[Itninja]

Indeed. The thing is I bet those boys will run down to buy the game without reading the tiny text that says they need Internet access to even play single player.....

But...

[Anonymous Coward]

... does it run on Linux? D:

How long until DotS (Defense of the Stars) Mod?

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite mod for WC3 is DotA. I hope something similar is created for SC2.

Re:How long until DotS (Defense of the Stars) Mod?

[Ahnteis]

It will be, but meanwhile there are at least 3 full games that play similar to DOTA. (Including 2 that were created by parts of the original team.)

Battle.net required? No Thanks

[ubergeek65536]

Why do I need to join battle.net for a game I only want to play against the computer. Playing against people online gets very tiring. It's hard to find anyone online that doesn't act like a spoiled six year old. Just shut up and play.

Re:Moar liek BlizCOON 2k10. Vivendi sux donkyballs

[oatworm]

Ladies and gentlemen, this is why you don't do mescaline.

Re:No fun in europe

[Shohat]

Hello
It is currently available in Europe. For at least one person in Spain, fore sure :)

Kill William, part 1 & 2

[TiggertheMad]

this is more like Kill Bill where it was supposed to be one movie and they just released it as two to make more money and planned on soaking the fans by releasing multiple versions on DVD.

I only paid about $24 combined for KB 1&2, so I don't know how they were 'soaking' the fans by releasing them separately. That is about the same price as you would pay for a two disk, 4+ hour feature anyway.

Does not matter

[uberjoe]

Spawn more overlords.

Re:Does not matter

[Bobfrankly1]

Spawn more overlords.

Ahhhh, I think you're right. I forgot the exact terming. It's been too long since my last starcraft fix. (got into the large battles of supreme commander)

Re:Battle.net required? No Thanks

[paziek]

You can always ignore and play and in the end you could just kick his ass and laugh, since often weak dogs bark.
Playing against NPC seems to be rather boring to me and can last for 24 hours tops, after that its tiring.

They don't accounce dates

[Snaller]

Unless you mean when they told people they were going to make a sequel.

Re:Battle.net required? No Thanks

[Archon-X]

..curious, seems you exhibit the very attitude you bemoan..

Re:Battle.net required? No Thanks

[DavidD_CA]

Maybe I missed it, but where does Blizzard say that you must play on Battle.Net?

StarCraft 2 ships with single-player campaigns, just like the first one did. And I haven't heard anything that says you cannot play games againt the computer.

What I *have* heard is that, during the beta, they are only focusing on player vs player games. And these, of course, require Battle.net. But I don't believe this applies to what will actually be shipping.

Re:Battle.net required? No Thanks

[MrNemesis]

From what I hear, you're required to have a battle.net account to play the game even in single player; this doesn't sit well with some people, including me - I also dislike playing online. Mandatory online-something also suggests that there'll be no provision for LAN play, and since this is generally the only way I like to play RTS games against real people it looks like I'm a bit stuffed. Additionally it means you're at the whim of corporate overlords if you want to play your game in a few years time, or if your activation/DRM goes wrong.

Re:Battle.net required? No Thanks

[Ihmhi]

If it's as unobtrusive as Steam's online authentication I doubt the majority of people would care.

Re:Battle.net required? No Thanks

[IKnwThePiecesFt]

I don't understand why logging in online to play singleplayer would upset someone, but I suppose you must be in the anti-steam group as well.

As far as the lack of LAN play, if you have broadband you can just make a private online game and it'll be the same. Of course, everyone has to actually buy the game rather than sharing a copy but these days that's kind par for the course on gaming.

As far as being at the whim of the corporate overlords, you can STILL play Starcraft 1 online so I would imagine SC2 will be available for quite a while.

Re:Thats nice... But.

[vcgodinich]

1995 is calling, they want their lan party back.

Re:Moar liek BlizCOON 2k10. Vivendi sux donkyballs

[Narcocide]

Damn where can I get some of that? Looks like good stuff.

Re:Requiring the will make me pirate it

[brkello]

I'd rather get a cracked version, risking virus' and trojans

I give you credit for at least acknowledging that it is a risk to do that. I'd still say if you don't like something a company does, just ignore it. They don't get your money and you still stay on the moral high ground.

But I'd say what I say to others. Maybe you should relax a bit and see how things are implemented. Nothing is final until it is released, and even then they might change things up. And battle.net is actually pretty sweet. I created an account, entered in cd keys, and now I can download all of my Blizzard games on any computer anywhere. That is enough of a reason for me to register right there.

I do understand your feeling though. You just want to play a single player game and not deal with the other stuff. I still feel the attitude is a bit extreme. Times change. I change with the times. I don't want to be like many old people today that can't figure out how to operate a computer because I have some dumb out dated principle. Like people who refuse to use credit cards and use checks instead. I can understand it, but it seems a bit silly to me.

Re:Moar liek BlizCOON 2k10. Vivendi sux donkyballs

[tirefire]

Mescaline is a psychedelic stimulant with subjective effects similar to LSD, magic mushrooms, and MDMA. To wit: morphing colors, compassion and understanding, creative thoughts. Pretty much the exact opposite of belligerence.

I think you might have mescaline confused with destructive drugs, like alcohol and/or PCP.

Re:Requiring the will make me pirate it

[Xingularity]

It's not about traffic. It's about having to hook up my 3G connection from my phone just so that I can get 16 rowdy, drunk gamers to authenticate with BNet before we can ST-ST-ST-ST-ST-ST-ST-ST-ST-START THE GAME, ALREADY!!!!!111one

Re:Battle.net required? No Thanks

[boxwood]

I don't think it will be a requirement for single player, but I could be wrong. I think the confusion comes from the fact that you can log in to battle.net when playing single player so that you can see when you're friends come online and maybe chat with them while playing the single player campaign.

Many computers are not for gaming only

[perpenso]

Outvoted, give me LAN support and forget about 4% of the market of which only a tiny percentage would be gamers. Forget Mac support, anyone who buys one for gaming is certifiably mad.

(1) Macs are around 8-10% these days.
(2) Despite the fact that Macs tend to be purchased for non-gaming reasons, once purchased the users may want to play games as well. Computers are flexible and fulfill multiple roles.

--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN

Re:Battle.net required? No Thanks

[XnavxeMiyyep]

I don't understand why logging in online to play singleplayer would upset someone

You've obviously never been on a long airplane flight.

LAN without internet is a relic of the past

[perpenso]

It's also a demonstration on Blizzard's part that they no longer care about their own roots. Starcraft was so popular largely because of its LAN-friendly multiplayer games. I don't like it when companies abandon their roots.

You seem to be confusing the user experience with the technology that delivered the experience. Starcraft was popular because of multiplayer, LAN was just a technology of 1998 that often delivered multiplayer. Technology has changed a bit in the last 12 years. Like modem (telephone not cable) and direct serial connection, a LAN without access to the internet is pretty much a relic of the past.

--
Perpenso Calc for iPhone and iPod touch, scientific and bill/tip calculator, fractions, complex numbers, RPN

Re:Thats nice... But.

[vcgodinich]

Where are you traveling that has no cell coverage?

Re:Requiring the will make me pirate it

[dosilegecko]

Sorry bub, battle.net is awesome, free, and here to stay. If you don't like it, you can geeeet ouuut.

Annoyed

[dosilegecko]

Its kind of annoying that I did not get a beta key, even though I have been a Blizzard fan and customer for most of my life. I know they have no real way of knowing that I own every Blizzard game (minus the atrocity that is WoW (hey, maybe thats why I didnt get a SC2 beta key)), but it would be nice to be rewarded for loyalty at least once in a while.

Re:Requiring the will make me pirate it

[brkello]

Right. At least make it plausible if you are going to make crap up.

Re:Battle.net required? No Thanks

[magus_melchior]

Oh, it was fun when there was an actual, well, community (ca. 1998)... Nowadays, battle.net is little more than hardcore WoW players who essentially want you to get out of their way* and the occasional D2/Brood War/WC3 player who acts like a spoiled six-year-old. You have to convince friends to go and login when you want to play multi outside of a LAN party (and if Blizzard cuts TCP/IP play out of SC2, that would be a serious mistake), and that's not always possible. How they're going to improve that for someone like me who would rather not squeeze another player's virtual nuts escapes me, but then, I suppose I'm vastly outnumbered.

* Okay, I confess: I don't play WoW. I have played RO, however, and I imagine the player-to-player experience would be similar: "Hey no KS" *string of expletives and abuse* ; hardcore MMORPG players are some of the most selfish bastards I have ever encountered, and I've seen a lot of selfish bastards in meatspace.

Re:Been so long the lag is killing me

[WillAffleckUW]

No, it wasn't that *hard*, but it wasn't *good enough*. WC3 sorta worked because they made it about small parties of units with a hero. Starcraft is a game about massive epic battles with zillions of zerglings, and would have choked the WC3 engine to death.

I can see it now - I'll create a massive warfleet of Carriers with fighters and run into a massive group of Zerglings and .... >

Re:Battle.net required? No Thanks

[ubergeek65536]

It's not the same. On the rare occasion that I do play online I don't whine during game play. In fact I don't chat to other users unless I absolutely need to.

Wow.

[ForTheHive]

Just three words, folks. Three words: It is orgasmic. Nothing else to say. I didn't even have a key until earlier today, when I posted on some blog claiming to have a ton of invites for free. I figured it was a scam, but posted a comment requesting an invite since I was hopeless and desitute. Lo and behold, three hours later, I actually had an invite. Go figure dude... Anyway, not sure if they have any invites left, but who knows, here's the link to the free starcraft 2 beta invites blog I found: http://starcraft2betainvites.blogspot.com/ Good luck! And one more thing... Battlecruisers Operational!!!