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StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm Released
Today Blizzard launched its first expansion to StarCraft 2, titled Heart of the Swarm. When initially developing StarCraft 2, Blizzard made the decision to split the game into three parts, each with a campaign as long as the original StarCraft. The initial release in 2010, Wings of Liberty, centered on the story of the Terrans. The newly-released Heart of the Swarm is focused on the Zerg. The final release, Legacy of the Void, will dedicate its campaign to the Protoss (and does not have a projected release timeframe yet). In addition to the new campaign, new units have been introduced for multiplayer and new maps have been added, which ought to shake things up in the competitive landscape. Blizzard has also made long-awaited improvements to the social system, including support for groups and clans.
Here I am working, when I could be playing. Thanks Slashdot, now I'm going to have to kill my productivity and go home and kill some zerg!
So, does this one, like the previous, require an always-on Internet connection to Blizzard's authentication servers, the ones that are tied to all their games? Because I really don't like the idea of not being able to play a single-player game just because some recent update to WoW is overloading their servers.
I just wish blizz would split Starcraft into the two games it clearly is : Single- and Multi-player.
I thoroughly enough the campaign missions, the overarching story, and everything else associated with the single player mode, but have zero interest in multiplayer. I've got plenty of other PvP games. I'd wager that there are plenty of people in my camp, as well as people who never touch the campaign, instead favoring multiplayer.
This signature is false.
If we really want to deter North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, we need to preemptively deploy SC2.
- Nec Impar Pluribus, or so I'm told.
I want my DRM !!
Make me pay like the swine I am and you want me to be !!
And do it as a playfore slashvertizement to get me going !! Then DO ME !!
I started playing the campaign for Heart of the Swarm today, and am very pleased with it so far. The cinematic sequences are really well done, and it has a great storyline so far.
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Why is this here? Every single person who gives a damn knew this already.
Keep in mind that some other dudes want you to pay a recurrent monthly fee for playing on their servers. All Blizzard titles provide free access to battle.net and a replayability that I have yet to find in other games. I have had played SC 1 for several years before SC 2 came out. I think I have good zerg-bang for my protoss-bucks.
Why does Slashdot have an article as soon as Blizzard release something, but barely any for any other games?
I only ask because in this day simply being able to play the game on release day is reason for joy
Have you played the Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty campaign? It is a full game all by itself. Starcraft 2: Wings of Libery + Starcraft 2: Heart of Swarm + Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void, = 3 Games. Most triple-A companies would charge you $60 per game which comes out to $180 for the series. Assuming the final game is also $40, Blizzard is charging you $140. They are $40 cheaper than most triple-A companies.
That way you can always fork if c55 decides to DRM it :D
So they give a new interface, new multiplayer game modes, new units, new game replay features, new maps, new matchmaking, new grouping/clan features, new cinematics, and an entirely new full-length campaign....but it's just an expansion?!?
Please explain how this is any less of a full game than Assasin's Creed 2? Halo 2? Call of Duty Anything?
the art and music is the same as Wings
you're paying for the new missions which took work
Do I own the expansion pack I'm buying? Can I play it anywhere I want, any time, and do whatever I want in the single player mission without fear of being banned and losing everything I've paid for?
No?
Fine, I'll take my $60 elsewhere.
Long Answer: There's an offline mode that you can use to play campaign & custom maps. The caveat is that you need to log in using your battle.net account once every 30 days for it to work.
My internet's been down for the last hour or so and I've been playing the campaign without a problem.
Now if it just wouldn't crash the computer. To be completely fair it is seems like a known bug that will be fixed in a future patch. However, that is little consolation to those who can not play it.
triple the revenues!
(10 years ago it would've been released as a single game AND at half the price of a single part AND would not have had a single-use activation code)
Monthly fees fund ongoing game development and server maintenance. For a matchmaking-only service like Starcraft 2, that's just not relevant. HotS should be able to meet its own costs on box-sales. Something like Mists of Pandaria can't.
For MMOs, the monthly fee is VASTLY preferable to the pay-to-win model.
To expand a bit on this...
Wings of Liberty has a campaign that takes around 20 hours, plus a few "skirmish" modes and multiplayer.
Heart of the Swarm has a campaign that - going off early reports - is around the same length as WoL's. It is built on the same engine, so fewer development costs there. However, it has entirely new cinematics, voice work etc (a good chunk of the costs), new mission design and a radically designed multiplayer.
As a standalone, Wings of Liberty is roughly equivalent value to... say... the original Dawn of War, at the time of its release. It's a good length singleplayer campaign (albeit where you only play as one faction), plus skirmish and multiplayer. And it has generally higher production values than Dawn of War (which isn't intended as a slight on that game - I loved it).
Heart of the Swarm also justifies its cost, on the basis of everything I've seen so far. The technological platform is aging a bit now, though; if they want to put the third installment out at the same price point, then they probably need a much smaller release-gap to avoid justifiable rip-off allegations.
Have you played the Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty campaign? It is a full game all by itself. Starcraft 2: Wings of Libery + Starcraft 2: Heart of Swarm + Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void, = 3 Games.
No. I count one game and two fairly expensive expansion packs. They include a few extra units, some multiplayer tweaks, and a map pack.
Most triple-A companies would charge you $60 per game which comes out to $180 for the series. Assuming the final game is also $40, Blizzard is charging you $140.
How much koolaid did you drink?
Brood War had a new campaign, units, maps, and cinematics too. It's an expansion in the sense that you can't buy and play it by itself: you have to own the base game already.
So you'd have rather either waited an extra year or two, or accepted around 1/3 less content for the same price?
Pretty rational, if you ask me.
Don't get me wrong, Blizzard has been on my shit-list for a while now, and I probably won't be buying this expansion, but I really can't complain. Its a full length game, as big as the original, for less money. Back before this DLC bullshit that we accept now, games released giant $40 expansions, as opposed to miniscule $10 DLC. This was an accepted practice. And it is a practice I wish we could return to.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
new multiplayer game modes, new units, new game replay features, new maps, new matchmaking, new grouping/clan features, new cinematics, and an entirely new full-length campaign....but it's just an expansion?!?
Yes.
It is telling that StarCraft 1 included 3 campaigns, and multiplayer, right out of the gate, one for each race. And the campaigns for starcraft 2 are not 3x as good nor 3x as long.
Finally, I fully expect some time after StarCraft's 3rd expansion is released, I'll be able to buy them as a single integrated "StarCraft 2: The whole game"
Please explain how this is any less of a full game than Assasin's Creed 2? Halo 2? Call of Duty Anything?
StarCraft's one integrated game in 3 pieces.
Assasin's Creed 2 is not integrated with 1 in any way.
Plus with starcraft 2 they designed it and what would be in it and each expac before the first game was released, for starters. I doubt they had Assassin's Creed mapped out before they started cutting code on Assassin's creed.
You make a good argument re "CoD anything" But then I'd say you were duped into over paying for rehashed sequels there.
I'm cheap and I'd rather not pay for content I have no interest in using.
Why would you be?
All of the content (like art assets) is used by both multi and single player modes.
The only thing you are in theory paying for and not using, is the code that allows a human to control the opposing forces instead of the computer, and some additional map design.
But the large bulk of effort that you paid for goes for the game you can play single player.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
No. I count one game and two fairly expensive expansion packs. They include a few extra units, some multiplayer tweaks, and a map pack.
And a full length single player campaign.
Have you played the Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty campaign? It is a full game all by itself. Starcraft 2: Wings of Libery + Starcraft 2: Heart of Swarm + Starcraft 2: Legacy of the Void, = 3 Games. Most triple-A companies would charge you $60 per game which comes out to $180 for the series. Assuming the final game is also $40, Blizzard is charging you $140. They are $40 cheaper than most triple-A companies.
$60, Luxury.
In Australia they charge you A$90 (US$91). Starcraft 2 was A$44 (so $40 + 10% GST).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
$40 for some new missions in the already developed level editor on the already developed engine and a few new multiplayer maps.
About the only thing that actually had to be done special is the voice work and any cinematics for the campaign.
Some people think $40 for an expansion based on 95% of content they already own is reaching a bit far.
I paid for that game and now I can't play anymore. What the hell?
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Welcome to 2013 where consumers are grateful to be able to buy a product, instead of customers being grateful to sell a product.
They might have had better PR if they just announced StarCraft 2, StarCraft 3, and StarCraft 4, and released them all as standalones.
I'm not a Starcraft fan, but my bro is, and they ruined it for anyone that doesn't play online. The entire single player campaign was one long tutorial mission to get you ready to play online, My bro spent 4 hours on a level because he kept trying to play it with different tactics than what the designers wanted him to learn. Not do, learn. Plus it was buggy out the door, but since this is an expansion I can't imagine it's busted. Still, come on. With so much money couldn't they have made a good freakin' single player game? I bought it to get him mind off all the shit in the world and it really, really didn't help.
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No. I count one game and two fairly expensive expansion packs. They include a few extra units, some multiplayer tweaks, and a map pack.
Command and Conquer, another RTS series, regularly sold sequels and expansions to their games for $40-50. The expansions almost always had the same units; the sequels within a "universe" (Red Alert or Tiberium) often had similar units if they weren't completely identical. This is kind of an RTS standby at this point: if you think it's not worth it, don't buy the game, but if units were undergoing massive changes between sequels and expansions, the competitive and multiplayer customers would throw a shit fit.
Really? Never heard that....source? It seems unlikely given the amount of change that goes on even during the beta's
And even if they did, not sure what it has to do with them being 3 games or not. Is the Lord of the Rings series one movie cause they filmed them at the same time?
3x as good is relative (I happen to disagree...I found some of the missions in SC2 to be quite inspired and original for an RTS (day/night mission, lava rising, flame wall).
I suspect the total length of all 3 campaigns in SC2 will be 2-2.5 times the length of SC1.
No, Assassin's creed 2 is not "integrated", but it fairly obviously uses much of the code, models, engine from AC1.
Never actually bought CoD anything (Actually I might own CoD 3), but my son buy's all of them. I can't tell which one he's playing by watching.
the monthly fee is VASTLY preferable to the pay-to-win model.
only someone that can't afford to win would say that.
GP had it right, and parent is trolling.
Blizzard knows what is best, most "usable" for the customer, but creates an artificial feature bottleneck and then uses the dumbest way ever to capitalize on it. It is bad management. I guarantee the game designers did not choose to do this.
It's a fuck up. Borne from a chain of anti-user decisions, and it ruins game franchises (or at least that iteration). This version IS screwed up and it will cost Blizzard in the long run. Unless you've been to Korea (I taught Enrish there), you have no idea. The LAN battles in Starcraft created an **entire professional gaming industry**
LAN Battles on broadcast TV.
The parent comment is 100% troll face, but GP has it right completely.
Thank you Dave Raggett
That depends if you count campaigns or missions as your metric. SC1 had 30 missions with 10 for each race. SC2: Wings of Liberty has 25 missions with one secret mission and 3 alternative ones. These are the ones where you have to pick between two different choices like whether you picked to get ghosts or spectres as a unit. But after you complete the campaign you can go back and play the other choice. The majority of the missions are Terran but about a few are Protoss. Total mission count is 29.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Spoken by someone who's never had to do voice overs.
You have no idea how expensive and time consuming voice works and pre-rendered cinematic's are.
Also if you think the engine in HOTS is exactly the same as the engine that was released in WOL, you need your head examined. There's been continual patching. I've only played the first 5 levels of HOTS but you can spot a lot of work put into level design, they haven't simply slapped together some new maps with voiceovers. This isn't COD and EA for fucks sake, they actually put some work into it.
Frankly $40 for an expansion pack (yes, it's an expansion pack, like what we used to have in the Good Old Days(TM) before DLC) that has almost as much content as the original is a godsend when they charge $5 for a hat and $15 for a single map DLC.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
All Blizzard titles provide free access to battle.net
Like WoW?
I got SC2 WoL release day for approx $70AUD by walking into a brick and mortar store in Melbourne, no preorder. $90? You got ripped off.
It is telling that StarCraft 1 included 3 campaigns, and multiplayer, right out of the gate, one for each race. And the campaigns for starcraft 2 are not 3x as good nor 3x as long.
3x as good? No, they were roughly comparable. 3x as long? Approximately, sure.
Please explain how this is any less of a full game than Assasin's Creed 2? Halo 2? Call of Duty Anything?
For those of us who've been gaming since before the original starcraft (first started gaming on a C64), this is what we expect in an expansion pack. Same engine with new levels, units and cinematics. Back in the 90's this was considered the norm for an expansion pack. Not like today where we get charged $5 for a hat and $15 for a single map.
BTW, I dont consider COD, Halo, et al. to be full games and refuse to buy them.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I got SC2 WoL release day for approx $70AUD by walking into a brick and mortar store in Melbourne, no preorder. $90? You got ripped off.
Where did I say I paid that for SC2. I paid $68 for that at JB HiFi.
Nope, $90 is the average price of a new game, or more accurately $89, which I just read as $90 these days.
I was pointing out that Blizzard is bucking the trend of expensive games AND price discrimination in Australia.
BTW, I usually buy my games from the US, UK or Hong Kong for around A$40 for a PC game. SC is one of the few games I dont want to wait for.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
My bad
Once upon a time I was eagerly looking forward to Starcraft 2 and even Warcraft 3, assuming that Blizzard would finally get around to including the AI options other RTS had introduced and refined. I mean this is a 'strategy' game, right?
Wrong. It's an action game. In fact, it is so much an action game that I would argue most online FPSes are quite strategic in comparison. They actually measure player skill in APS, that's actions per second. Once you progress beyond the noob skill level, your success is almost entirely a product of your twitch, with less than a half dozen cookie-cutter strategies you must blindly follow as fast as you possibly can if you are to have any hope of success.
I loved the original SC/BW campaigns and since the singleplayer difficultly usually isn't too bad I'm sure I'll love SC 2's (I'm waiting for them to release all 3 as a bundle), but I simply don't understand the appeal of a "strategy" game that foists so much mandatory micromanagement on you that actual strategy becomes a wisp of an afterthought.
SC1 had 10 Terran missions, 8 Zerg missions and 8 Protoss missions. That 26, not 30.
There's actually a shit ton of new art. New music, new "tile sets" for environments, alternate character models for nearly every unit, entirely new units, new cinematics, new environments for "in-engine" cut scenes, an entirely new user interface. This is not Doom2 or a Warcraft 2: Beyond the Dark Portal. Blizzard has put more into this "expansion" than most full priced sequels to 360/PS3 games get these days.
Did you feel ripped off that you had to pay for 3 movie tickets to see the full Lord of the Rings trilogy? Or would you rather have seen all 3 books condensed into one 3 hr movie? Because that's basically the argument you've been trying to make. You wanted Blizzard to shit out a mediocre product, because somehow in your mind the game is not "complete" unless you play 10 maps each for 3 races one after the other, regardless of if that makes any sense from a story telling perspective. Not to mention that at least 30% of those maps in Starcraft 1 were the most rudimentary base-building tutorials possible. How many SC1 missions are literally just "build 1 barracks and make 10 marines"? Or "walk across this map." I could probably finish, on average, 2.5 SC1 levels in the time it takes to complete one WoL level. And it's not because WoL campaign maps are boring or slow. The majority are genuinely interesting, engaging, fun, and creative levels. Hardly any two are the same (again, unlike SC1 campaign maps). Oh, and did I mention you play as Protoss in WoL for four maps? And there are story branches, and that after you beat the game you can go back and check out the branch you missed?
If you'd actually played SC2, or even fucking read anything about it other than some angry forum posts someone made in 2009 before anyone outside Blizzard had even seen the campaign, you'd realize what a fucking idiotic argument you've been trying to make.
Wrong.
SC1 had 10 Terran, 10 Zerg and 10 Protoss missions.
SC1: Brood War, otoh, had 10 Protoss missions, 8 Terran missions and 8 + 1 secret Zerg mission.
At least be factual when you "correct" other people.
I have nothing to lose but my bindings.
BW in fact has 8 Protoss missions, 8 + 1 alternate Terran mission, and 10 + 1 secret Zerg mission.
so BW has 28 missions in total.
I have nothing to lose but my bindings.
Wake up gamers and stop supporting companies that implement shitty DRM and profit mongering schemes by dangling products like this in front of you. Just because Star Craft 2 didn't have some naive DRM protection scheme implemented, Blizzard still unleashed Diablo 3 on the world.
Game companies will wake up when they start losing money because nobody is buying their defective products.
But 99.99% of the people reading this are like "Oooh, a Star Craft 2 expansion, how quickly can I throw money at Blizzard...". The same people rushing to throw money at EA for SimCity in spite of the controversy.
Of course its easy to throw your parent's money around I guess.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
I don't get the whole thrill of StarCraft. I've watched a few competition videos and honestly the game seems about as fun as watching a chess match.
Have you played the Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty campaign?
Yup, I bought it, played it and put it down after finishing it within the week - found multiplayer so repetitive and twitchy it never got picked up again.
I do not agree at all that it is a full game - Starcraft (the first one) was a full game with a campaign for all races in 1 package. The version of SC2 that I (stupidly) bought was a partial game - it was missing the rest of the campaign that is now being sold as expansions...
But I've expressed my displeasure with Blizz - making sure to point out that technical fuck-ups like what happened with D3 are close to driving me away as a customer for ever - but downright greedy scams like SC2 being divvied up into 3 games, are more than enough to make me blacklist them for good. I recieved what appeared to be an actual reply to my complaint, in that it acknoweldged my displeasure - but still looked like a copy/paste for such situations. That's their choice of course and I'm sure they don't need any more of my money anyway.
They are $40 cheaper than most triple-A companies.
Scamming me for less than other scammers doesn't endear them to me - it's still a shitty move, no more or less than other shitty moves, for it's different price.
No. I count one game and two fairly expensive expansion packs. They include a few extra units, some multiplayer tweaks, and a map pack.
And a ton of engine changes, and a new campaign, and new cinematics....
Generally that would be enough to qualify as a full blown sequel anywhere else.
Outside of South Korea, I mean.
Been playing PC games for the past 20 years, I haven't bought or played any Blizzard games since they turned (thank you Vivendi) from a company focused on making games that deliver a great user experience to a company focused on making money at the expense of user experience. They broke every gaming "don't" in existence in my book : always online DRM, in game micro transactions, patches that degrade the game experience for purpose of making you buy the next extension/pack or to cater to the whining dum-dums of the world, given up on innovating just rehashing their last succesfull game over and over again, no LAN cooperative play, triple dipping by deliberately splitting a game in parts and selling them as individual games (and pricing them as such) .
Shame on them and any idiot who supports their business model. Get Company of Heroes or Sins of a Solar Empire instead.
Frankly $40 for an expansion pack (yes, it's an expansion pack, like what we used to have in the Good Old Days(TM) before DLC) that has almost as much content as the original is a godsend when they charge $5 for a hat and $15 for a single map DLC.
And that is the problem right there - it only has as much content as the original because the original was missing 2/3'rds of its content!
If this was an expansion pack of this size, to a full-sized original game I wouldn't be complaining - I wouldn't buy it at £40 either, I'd wait until it dropped closer to £20 - but at least I wouldn't be boycotting the company because of its greed and this shameless rip-off disguised as 3 games.
Each game comes with a lengthy single player campaign and an extensive multiplayer game. What keeps HotS from being a complete game?
Did you liked TA, you might like Supreme Commander (Supcomm,and Forged Alliance, not Supreme Commander 2).
You might also find the Planetary Annihilation kickstarter of interest.
No. I count one game and two fairly expensive expansion packs
And this is different from Brood Wars?
For multiplayer it might be mostly an expansion pack, but the single-player campaigns were significant.
And this is different from Brood Wars?
No it wasn't. But people weren't trying to pretend that Broodwars was a whole new separate game either. It was an expansion pack. It was priced as one.
And a full length single player campaign.
Right I meant to include that. It doesn't change anything.
Hell, Blizzards own expansion to Diablo II contained the whole new barbarian city & dungeon area, new cinematics, new monsters, new bosses, the new beastmaster(?) class I can't recall what it was called, upgraded the graphics to support 800x600 up from 640x480, new item sets, and it added runes for sockets.
These days whole games are released with less content then old expansion packs. We're supposed to be grateful when a few new skins or multiplayer modes or maps show up as DLC, stuff that used to be offered in free patches for popular games along with the bug fixes.
Then blizzard comes along and releases a proper expansion pack which is fine. And then idiots start to argue that I'm supposed to treat it as a whole new game. Its not. Its just an xpac.
Me, I'll buy starcraft ii, maybe, once the protoss expac is out and its all bundled for one price. Or maybe not... I'm still pissed about the DRM.
Sounds like you're in a rush...
My objection isn't to the expac itself. My objections are:
a) I don't like being told the xpac is a whole new game. It's not. It's an xpac. Its fine as an xpac. Lets not pretend its something its not.
b) Everyone knows out of the gate that SC2 was planned as having 2 xpacs to add campaigns for Zerg and Protoss. This smacks of dividing the game into 3 to sell expansions and make more money. Just how blantant they were about aside the fact remains that a lot of gamers were turned off by this.
When you approach game design like that, you are motivated to hold back things simply for the sake of selling the expansion later. Where the 'base game' is deliberately under-featured relative to what it "should have been". In some cases features of the expansion are actually present in the base game at shipping, just turned off. This is a turn off.
So I decided to wait until the xpacs were done. And I'll evaluate whether to buy the finished product once blizzard sells it as one.
We heard of the problems with Simcity, now we apparently have a problem with HOTS. Bought my copy yesterday--- battlenet can't authenticate today. Over paying good money for games that don't work out of the box.
Ok Omestes...you have to respond directly to this, from my original post:
"Blizzard...creates an artificial feature bottleneck and then uses the dumbest way ever to capitalize on it."
They removed a usable feature. Don't tell me about what *you* think *personally* about *your* gaming preferences. You probably have the ability to think from the perspective of the decision maker, Blizzard.
It's wrong to abuse your users by removing features that **many use** (don't fuck with me on that last phrase, asshat, it's a fucking pro sport in Korea...it's popular to use LAN...) in order to force them to give you personal data via constant link.
You can't deny that. That mean's your point is disproven.
I want to see you try, but you fail if you don't directly counter the argument I made...the deliberate removal of a usable feature to force users to give up personal data.
Thank you Dave Raggett
But in this day and age constant internet access is pretty much a given.
You are very much mistaken.
Lots of people still have to use a dial-up phone line to get to the internet.
Some people cannot get faster than 28.8 because of distance from the central office.
LAN play? Households with two computers, and dialup internet service; more common than you think.
Or ... how well does this system handle 3 or 4 people behind a router sharing a single IP address? Can they all play together? Is it really as fast as a direct LAN?
Ormestes...I win...
I said, in my original post: "Blizzard knows what is best, most "usable" for the customer, but creates an artificial feature bottleneck and then uses the dumbest way ever to capitalize on it."
I accept your apology
Thank you Dave Raggett