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Blizzard Announces StarCraft 2

Posted by Zonk on Sat May 19, 2007 02:34 AM
from the my-life-for-aiur-again dept.
Entertainment Games
We'll be returning once again to the world of StarCraft, it appears, and not in the form of a Massively Multiplayer game. Blizzard has announced StarCraft 2 at their packed event in Seoul, South Korea. IGN is liveblogging the event, describing gameplay footage being played as well as full cinematics. From the description of ongoing events there are massive changes to the way the game plays, new units, a physics system within the game engine, and the capability to show over 100 units onscreen at a time. "Showing gameplay footage - Looks like protoss ships - floating over asteroid/ base structure - entering protoss ase - similar looking buildings - vespene gas still in the game - character pane shows up on right side - some protoss guy - shifts to terran bases floating on rockets over same type of territory - sill collecting crystals as resources - marines load out. Dustin is actually playing the game - nothing in the game is final." Additional coverage from Milky at 1up.
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Blizzard Announces StarCraft 2 25 Comments More /

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  • Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mgiuca (1040724) on Saturday May 19 2007, @02:40AM (#19188695)
    Excellent, so glad it isn't a StarCraft MMO as rumoured.

    What I want to know is, will it have a Heroes model (after Warcraft III) or will it drop back to a more traditional model of RTS (just units). Or will it have an entirely new hook? I hope it follows after Warcraft III's model.

    However, the reports of having hundreds of zerglings makes it seem like it might be more of a macro scale RTS.

    • It has some heroes... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Myria (562655) on Saturday May 19 2007, @02:43AM (#19188717)
      The Protoss mother ship (from IGN's Charles Onyett [ign.com]):

      3:18 - warprey also very effective against structures - very vulnerable to small unit fire - shws warpreys getting wiped out by terran marines. Physics system lets debris from warpreys roll down a ramp. Showing one more unit - warped in in a serious of cubes - giant floating base - called a protoss mothership - can only have 1 at a time - cost big resources - special abilities include timebomb that slows all enemy missiles inside - shows terran missle launcher shooting in projectiles that stop in the field before they reach the ship - when field ends missiles drop the ground - planet cracker attack - giant lasers stream from ship to ground - ship can be moved around while planet cracker laser is active - the ship looks like a metallic, triangular sand dollar - mothership can create a black hole anywhere it wannts to - creates distortion that actually sucks ships in and destroys them - in the demo the black hole destroyed four terran battle cruisers in about ten seconds.

    • Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Derekloffin (741455) on Saturday May 19 2007, @04:11AM (#19189065)
      I hope it follows after Warcraft III's model.

      God I hope not. I don't want a WCIII mod with SC skins, I want StarCraft II. It should stand out as unique from both it's predecessor and it's brother in the WC universe.

    • Re:Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)

      by geniusj (140174) on Saturday May 19 2007, @06:01AM (#19189533) Homepage
      Ick. As far as I'm concerned, skip the heroes. It's the reason I didn't get into WC3. I've got enough to think about without micromanaging heroes too.

  • Wow. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 19 2007, @02:40AM (#19188697)
    Even SC2 beat out Duke Nukem Whenever...

  • Starcraft 2 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ASkGNet (695262) on Saturday May 19 2007, @02:40AM (#19188701) Homepage
    I only hope that Blizzard won't try to mix&match genres in an attempt to gain wider audience. The fact that in WC3, the game degenerated into Hero rush is what kept me from playing it.

    They should look at the original Ground Control for an idea of a good strategy game

    • Re:Starcraft 2 (Score:5, Funny)

      by solios (53048) on Saturday May 19 2007, @02:54AM (#19188765) Homepage
      Word. I hated War3 - it slammed all of the most irritating elements of RPGs on top of an RTS and wound up being a severely unenjoyable experience as a result. I can't think of a Blizzard title I've enjoyed less.

      Hopefully Starcraft 2 is Improved Starcraft. If their previous release pattern is anything to go by, it should be. Then Starcraft 3 will suck ass, then we'll have World Of Starcraft, which won't suck.

      • Re:Starcraft 2 (Score:5, Insightful)

        by dosboot (973832) on Saturday May 19 2007, @04:13AM (#19189077)
        WC3 did however make it so you didn't spend half the game clicking peons, you could cast spells easily, and all around had subtle micro improvements. As much as I like starcraft, warcraft 3 was much more accessible. I'm still only a touch better than hopeless at starcraft, whereas in less time with wc3 I can understand the game very well. For me this makes being hero centric and small scale irrelevant, and it is where I want sc2 to be exactly like wc3.

        • Re:Relic (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Puff of Logic (895805) on Saturday May 19 2007, @03:31AM (#19188899)

          If Starcraft 2's going to be a Warcraft 3 with pylons, so be it; it'll probably sell millions in South Korea, and I don't doubt it will be a fine update of the balancing act that was Starcraft. Without something really new in the way battles are fought, though, I just can't imagine myself being that excited.
          That's fair enough. I've been saying for a while now that I'd actually be happy with exactly the same damned game with new graphics and maybe some neat physics. Starcraft was released an age ago in gaming terms and it's still resident on my drive simply because it's fun. I know that there are going to be a lot of unreasonable expectations for this game, but I think that as long as Blizzard can retain the core feel and gameplay of the original, they can't go wrong.

          And yes, I'm a huge fan of Relic's work.

  • May I be the first to say... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Karganeth (1017580) on Saturday May 19 2007, @02:41AM (#19188713)
    KEKEKEKEKE ZERG RUSH!

  • My Wife for Hire!!!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Steavis (887731) on Saturday May 19 2007, @02:47AM (#19188739)
    ....Or was that "My life for Aiur!" I could never tell what those damn zealots were saying.

  • Another crisis averted (Score:5, Funny)

    by tehSpork (1000190) on Saturday May 19 2007, @02:58AM (#19188785)
    In other news, the rest of the world released a huge sigh of relief as the Doomsday Clock [damninteresting.com] was turned back. A spokesman for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was quoted as saying "A Starcraft MMO could have ended it all. We may never know how close we came to the complete and utter destruction of society as we know it."

  • CGI Trailer on YouTube (Score:5, Informative)

    by Myria (562655) on Saturday May 19 2007, @03:01AM (#19188795)
    Here [youtube.com]

  • Screenshots available (Score:5, Informative)

    by mgiuca (1040724) on Saturday May 19 2007, @03:25AM (#19188875)
    IGN has posted screenshots here [ign.com].

    Looks incredibly cool graphically, though at the moment it looks like the gameplay is exactly the same as StarCraft. I wonder if there'll be some gameplay announcements soon.

  • Appropriate use of a well-used quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by GFree (853379) on Saturday May 19 2007, @04:00AM (#19189009)
    I, for one, welcome our new Zerg overlords.

    *whisper: dude, we don't have any overlords*

    SPAWN MORE OVERLORDS!

  • Likely no revolutionary gameplay changes... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mstroeck (411799) on Saturday May 19 2007, @04:05AM (#19189039) Homepage
    I'm entering "long, pseudo-philosophical rant"-mode here, so caveat lector:

    Improving StarCraft is like improving chess - arguably possible, but hardly without upsetting a lot of people. StarCraft is still being played today because as a game, it's one of the most polished and consistent experiences available. It's not truly "real-time", it has little to do with "strategy", it is certainly not trying to be realistic and the graphics suck by today's standard - but that's also true for poker and darts. I feel most of the comments calling for Blizzard to "look to Title X" for new ideas for StarCraft 2 are a little misguided. StarCraft's gameplay is in a class of it's own, people will buy it because it's StarCraft. And they will buy it because StarCraft -even in its current form- is just a damn good game in it's own right. It's just imaginable that, a hundred years from now, people will still enjoy slightly enhanced versions of exactly the same formula, just like we enjoy back gammon thousands of years after its original form was created.

  • Starcraft forever (Score:5, Insightful)

    by N3wsByt3 (758224) <Newsbyte.freenethelp@org> on Saturday May 19 2007, @04:34AM (#19189145) Homepage Journal
    While I see some complain that Starcraft2 is just like Starcraft, I rather think that's just one of it's strengths. I would *hate* to have seen a completely 'revised' starcraft where one could hardly see any link with the old game. Let's face it; it may be true that Blizzard is (much like EA) a rather commercial company (well, they all are, but you know what I mean) who mainly goes for established and proven concepts, and doesn't come up with something daring or original - one must acknowledge they hit the spot with Starcraft. It was one of the best games of the genre in its time. Ah, the wee hours I spend on it (including broodwars). I'm not saying it was perfect (there were some missions who were rather tedious and boring), but all in all it was a great game - and even until this day I play it now and then (I bought it again for 6 euro or so last year; a real bargain, since it STILL looks reasonable and remains as enjoyable as when it came out).

    So, yes, Blizzard isn't really an innovative company and only bets on sure moneymakers, and their Starcraft2 is much like Starcraft, only with prettier graphics, a new story, new units, new AI and physics...but really, isn't that new enough for something that already was a superb game (and, as Blizzard well knows, a huge succes)? I think *many* more would complain if Blizzard had taken Starcraft into directions that completely deviated from the old game, frankly. Imagine they made a MMOG out of it...that would have been completely awful (just as when Beth would make the next TES game into a MMOG; a big mistake - though in that case, multiplayer for 4-8 friends to play in it would be cool). All in all, Blizzard did well not to tinker too much with the concept of the game itself; a huge fanbase would be more inclined to turn their backs on them if they would be *too* cavalier in changing an already established and loved game.

    That said, I would like to see Blizzard and EA try out something really innovative with a new game, though. It's a bit sad such huge companies dare less then other, often far more smaller game-developing corporations. Yeah, I know; going for the easy money is always...well, easier. But I can't imagine the game-devs themselves wouldn't like to tackle and try out something totally new too, even in those companies.

  • oh god (Score:5, Funny)

    by chillax137 (612431) on Saturday May 19 2007, @05:46AM (#19189479) Homepage
    i'm starting grad school next semester. i hope to god that sc2 is delayed long enough for me to get my phd.

    • Re:Looks like Starcraft 1 with new graphics... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by graymocker (753063) on Saturday May 19 2007, @04:38AM (#19189169)

      It's unsurprising to see how reminiscent of Starcraft this is. Innovation has never been strength of Blizzard; historically, Blizzard games have never had revolutionary features. Starcraft itself was merely the purest, best manifestation of a RTS formula that was very well established by the mid-90s. Blizzard sticks to refining established gameplay concepts into a perfectly crafted and meticulously balanced gem. This is not intended either as a insult of Blizzard, merely an observation - the studio is obviously very, very good at what it does, and it is rightly rewarded for that by the market. Indeed, the games industry would be much poorer without Blizzard, as it had a hand in popularizing many otherwise overlooked innovations in games, but the fact is that they don't innovate and never have. (The Gauntlet-style RPG slasher was about dead prior to Diablo, and Warcraft 3's appropriation of the hero system from neglected games like Battlecry and Kohan seems to have made it a staple of the RTS genre, etc.)

      • Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)

        by bsharitt (580506) <bsharittNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Saturday May 19 2007, @06:27AM (#19189629) Homepage Journal
        It appears the good ole days of the RTS are back. C&C 3, Supreme Commander, and now StarCraft 2. Throw in some very good newcomers like Company of Heros, and it's the best time to be an RTS gamer since the 90's.

          • Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)

            by RoffleTheWaffle (916980) on Saturday May 19 2007, @04:51AM (#19189225) Journal
            The point about style that you made is probably why everyone remembers Starcraft, while Total Annihilation is practically unknown to most gamers today. While I'm sure most of us can agree that Starcraft was a technically inferior program, it was much more memorable for its style, appearance, and story. Total Annihilation, meanwhile, was a game far ahead of its time, and it got left in the dust because it had zero personality. Total Annihilation's gameplay was and continues to be top-notch, even surpassing Supreme Commander in a few respects. (Namely in unit diversity and pacing.) It had features most RTS games don't have now, and that was ten years ago. The problem is, there was no 'coolness hook' - no real style - to draw you in unless you really, really appreciated the gameplay and the feature-set. In today's world of pretty lights, convoluted storylines, and stylishly dressed feature characters, games like Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander are just too difficult for most gamers to appreciate.

            That's not to say they're both not completely incredible games, which they are. They're just totally square in spite of being so awesome.

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