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StarCraft II To Be Released On July 27
Blizzard announced today that StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, the first game in a series of three, will be released on July 27. The game will contain the Terran campaign (29 missions), the full multiplayer experience, and "several challenge-mode mini-games," with "focused goals designed to ease players into the basics of multiplayer strategies." It will launch alongside the revamped Battle.net, which we've previously discussed. Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said, "We've been looking forward to revisiting the StarCraft universe for many years, and we're excited that the time for that is almost here. Thanks to our beta testers, we're making great progress on the final stages of development, and we'll be ready to welcome players all over the world to StarCraft II and the new Battle.net in just a few months."
So a friend got me in on the SC2 beta, and I've got to say, it really wasn't much fun. I loved the original SC, but when BroodWar came out, I felt like i had to coordinate too many units' special abilities during a battle, in a very small amount of wall-clock time. SC2 felt similar but perhaps even worse in that regard. Maybe some of that goes away after you've played for a while, but I'm just not in the mood to put in that time. Maybe it's just a stage-of-life difference, I dunno.
That being said, I *am* looking forward to Diablo 3 still.
For a second I thought that this was hyperbole, but then I realized it's actually true. Seeing as the original starcraft was released in 1998, it'd make the parent 24 years old.
God that's scary.
The trouble with multiplayer RTS games is that, after a while, they appeal largely to the type of folks who want to learn the recipe for success on a given map and then practice until they're able to apply it faster than the other loser they're playing against.
What I'd like to see in the next wave of RTS games, then, is a method by which they screw with the various units just enough from game to game that simply being able to do the same thing over and over again as quickly as possible does not equal success in multiplayer -- somehow introduce a measure of creativity and quick-thinking rather than just "zergling rush the bitches until Blizzard patches us"-style tactics.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Games like Starcraft, Warcraft, C&C, etc almost always have one campaign for each faction. That's been the standard for decades now. Blizzard is slowly releasing a single game over (a year or two?) and making a lot more money in the process. I'll admit that 29 missions is slightly longer than your average campaign, and challenge modes are a nice way of recycling content, but it certainly doesn't make for a complete game. I'll still buy it.
Somehow I doubt that general release will meet that schedule. There are still widespread installer issues with the Mac beta, and reading the beta forums one is left with impression that there are still severe balance issues between races.
So I expect they'll delay release. Or -- worse -- they'll delay the Mac release until sometime after the PC release.
Remember the original StarCraft? The Mac Release was more than a year after the Windows release. Few people seem to remember it, but I do; I was pissed. Blizzard pledged "never again" but somehow I doubt that they'll stick to that pledge if it threatens them with any real opportunity costs.
Most of my friends are already playing the Windows version on PCs or using BootCamp. But if that becomes a requirement, why even bother pretending to cater to Mac users?
I can see the fnords!
In Korea, only old people play computer games.
Dang straight. Heck I've figured the nursing home scene will be the perfect time for gaming.
Think about it: limited mobility, limited income, probably not a lot of visitors, sex drive that has plummeted to near zero, and tons of time to pass by SOMEHOW.
I'd be in a WoW hardcore 25-man raiding group if I was old and in a retirement home. I got a ways to go, but I'm sure I'll be doing the equivalent when the time comes :D.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
" Blizzard pledged "never again" but somehow I doubt that they'll stick to that pledge if it threatens them with any real opportunity costs."
You're overreacting. Blizz did stick to this pledge and there is nothing to point to the fact that they won't here. My Mac client patched just fine, so did a friend's. Do they have bugs to iron out in the mac client? Sure, but patching issues aren't a huge deal. They have 3 months to fix them. There were patching issues in the Windows client earlier as well, these got sorted out. I see nothing in the Mac beta that makes me think they won't reach launch on time.
"and reading the beta forums one is left with impression that there are still severe balance issues between races."
People tend to shout "imba" when they lose and can't figure out a proper counter. The problem with balancing a game like SC is that so much of the actual game balance comes out in the metagame, and this takes time. SC:BW hasn't been changed in, what, 7 years? And yet the way the game is played today is totally different than 7 years ago. What was once thought was OP is now not a big deal, people figured out how to stop it. If you keep mucking with units and balance, you never have the opportunity to see if the player base will "learn" how to counter challenges on its own.