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Comments: 144 +-   Can Blizzard Top StarCraft? on Thursday May 31 2007, @01:51PM

Posted by Zonk on Thursday May 31 2007, @01:51PM
from the better-than-ezra-anyway dept.
rts
MSNBC is running an interview with Blizzard designer Rob Pardo discussing a number of facets of the upcoming StarCraft II. Informational tidbits include the fact that, unsurprisingly, the game won't be released this year, and some background on the game's long development cycle. "Penny Arcade figured it out! We keep games under code names and we teach developers to refer to games by their code name. And we're just really careful about talking about the game internally. We don't bring external folks through unannounced product areas. But I think even I'm surprised that we were able to keep it under wraps all the way to the end."
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Can Blizzard Top StarCraft? 50 Comments More /

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  • Top starcraft? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by svendsen (1029716) on Thursday May 31 2007, @01:53PM (#19341753)
    No, the hype machine is to great for star craft 2 to ever live up to. Not saying it won't be good just well...hype ruins things.
    • Exactly.. Look at the doom3. Need I say more.
      • Look at Duke Nukem' Forever... er, yeah...

      • Re:Top starcraft? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tehwebguy (860335) on Thursday May 31 2007, @02:14PM (#19342133) Homepage
        Yeah, look at Half-Life 2 -- oh wait, it did better.

        We're not talking about not id or Valve or anyone else, just Blizzard.
        They can pull it off.
      • Because everyone expected a high-res fast paced run n' gun shoot-em up when id delivered a slower-paced survival horror FPS?

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by phildawg (1104325)
          I thought half-life 2 and doom 3 were outstanding games! And I think it's bullshit some want to lump them into the sequel category. I think what you are forgetting is how long it takes for these sequels to come out compared to others.

          A company who is milking a franchise releases the sequels relatively quickly, not 5-10 years down the road... When a sequel is released 5 years after the first one... I'd say those are typically going to be amazing games, because it took so long because they were trying to make

  • Can Blizzard Top StarCraft? (Score:5, Funny)

    by j00r0m4nc3r (959816) on Thursday May 31 2007, @01:58PM (#19341845)
    Short answer: "yes" with an "if"
    Long answer: "no" with a "but"

  • Wouldn't the better question be... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by the computer guy nex (916959) on Thursday May 31 2007, @02:02PM (#19341937)
    .. can Blizzard top Wow?

    Starcraft sold a ton of copies, but it is now a moneysink. It is free to play on Battle.Net and not many new copies are being sold. They are continuously losing money from a game created many many years ago.

    The $15/month from a MMO cannot be understated. The decision to make a non-MMO game after the success of WoW is very puzzling.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by twitchingbug (701187)
      No new Starcraft copies are being sold? Dude. They still sell the Battle Chest at Fry's for an outrageous $20. Outrageous in the fact that the game has been out 10+ years. And you gotta think it sells some to be on the store shelves for that long.

      Of course, $15 a month is probably a lot more money...

    • Re:Wouldn't the better question be... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Applekid (993327) on Thursday May 31 2007, @02:15PM (#19342155)
      I'm not sure that's such a fair comparison: Starcraft isn't likely to cannibalize sales and if Blizzard gets a good ROI from this new project, the success of WoW in comparison is moot... IF the teams developing aren't being pulled away from maintaining and enhancing WoW in a way that matters. Looking at the later half of EQ, most of the staff wound up replaced by less experienced (read: cheaper) developers to maintain it since at that time the code base was mature enough that nothing could be messed with that would destroy the world as players knew it.

      I'll assume they did the math and figured it'd be a good investment. Blizzard is a business first, after all.

      Meanwhile, if they made a new MMOG to top themselves with WoW, they risk the new project cannibalizing their own subscribers. Back in the day I played Everquest and with new-at-the-time games like Anarchy Online and Planetside I still couldn't bring myself to pay for more than one online game since A) the new game consumes time, B) time is linked to progress in MMOGs by design, C) I'm paying full price regardless of how many hours I actually use each period.

      • Re:Wouldn't the better question be... (Score:5, Interesting)

        by twistedsymphony (956982) on Thursday May 31 2007, @03:05PM (#19342929) Homepage
        I'd agree, If Blizzard were to make a new MMO I would assume they'd probably make something for the 360/PS3 platforms where they could grow an entirely new userbase without sacrificing their current ones.

        Despite the fact that WoW has been out for quite some time I think most of the users would feel the game was being abandoned before it's time if they turned out another MMO. Starcraft on the other hand is long overdue for a new addition to the franchise. The advancements in technology alone give them a lot of room to improve.

    • Re:Wouldn't the better question be... (Score:5, Informative)

      by moderatorrater (1095745) on Thursday May 31 2007, @02:19PM (#19342209)
      The number 2 seller for PC games in North America? [gamasutra.com] That starcraft isn't selling many new copies?
        • Actually, your analysis still doesn't hold up because my post was refuting the comment about a lack of sales, not the moneysink comment. However, to refute the moneysink would require an analysis of the cost of upkeep for starcraft (right now they have minimal development on patches, so the primary cost is server maintenance and bandwidth) subtract the revenue from tournaments, the revenue from advertisements on battle.net and the revenue from sales.

          Even then the analysis is simplistic since keeping the

    • Re:Wouldn't the better question be... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by djones101 (1021277) on Thursday May 31 2007, @02:26PM (#19342333)

      I'd question if StarCraft really is losing them money. People are still purchasing the game, either replacing old disks or buying it for the first time, and the related paraphernalia associated with StarCraft still sells quite well. There's still a huge following for StarCraft in Korea, which is why they announced SC2 there. StarCraft was released in 1998, and as of a few years ago, it still had branded Doritos being distributed (cannot verify if they still are, sorry). So far as I can tell, no other game (MMO or not) has managed to have that kind of staying power a marketplace outside of its own industry.

      I won't argue that WoW is Blizzard's bread and butter, they've got a ton of subscribers (myself included) pouring a lot of money into their coffers, but I heavily disagree that SC is a negative drain on their resources. A moneysink would be what is left of the game originally known as SWG, if Blizzard had that steamy pile of poodoo instead of SOE. Running battle.net servers for something with as rabid a following as SC, however, is far from a moneysink. It maintains a status quo, and probably breaks even when cost is weighed against revenue.

      Finally, the decision to not pursue an MMO is actually a good one, imho. It avoids cutting into Blizzard's current revenue stream...WoW. When you have something that works, especially something that works as well as WoW does for making money, why jeopardize that? What would happen if they made a World of StarCraft, and users found they hated that game? Some would gravitate back to WoW, others would swear off Blizzard games entirely. Personally, that's what I did with SOE's handling of SWG. SOE may very well come out with the best WoW killer ever, but myself and a ton of other old-style SWG players would snub the game just because SOE is involved with it. The same could happen to Blizzard with a competing MMO that doesn't live up to the hype it's given before release. They know SC2 will generate a great return on investment, simply because of the hype associated and the loyal fans they have already. They have no need to top WoW, they only need to satiate as much of the playerbase for SC2 as possible.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Fozzyuw (950608)

      Starcraft sold a ton of copies, but it is now a moneysink. It is free to play on Battle.Net and not many new copies are being sold. They are continuously losing money from a game created many many years ago....The $15/month from a MMO cannot be understated.

      From the article (one of more interesting parts, I think)...

      Given the popularity of "WoW," do you have any plans to go to subscription model with "StarCraft II" or any subsequent releases?

      We're going to do what's right for the game. We made "WoW" t

      • They're probably waiting to see how well their old colleagues at Flagship studios do with their online plans for Hellgate: London.

        I'd be surprised if they required a fee to play anything on Battle.net. That's what drew a lot of people to the service in the first place. Funny how back in the day we had pay-for-play services like TEN and Mplayer and then we got the free services, and now we're coming back around full cycle. I'd expect a subscription plan if they have some premium services, but I'll bet the
      • "but it's interesting to hear they're considering it, though probably not taking it seriously."

        If they were to MMO starcraft I think they'd have a hard time finding quality developers, to make it. Not only that blizzard's reputation would get dragged through the mud in korea. There is no way they could fuck up starcraft as an MMO because they would simply abandon their fanbase completely.

    • Re:Wouldn't the better question be... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by brkello (642429) on Thursday May 31 2007, @03:01PM (#19342885)
      No, it wouldn't be. Considering that (at this point) there is no WoW2 and WoW is already making tons of money, there is no need to top WoW. Starcraft is one of the most loved and still played RTSs of all time. It is a valid question to see if they can actually improve the most balanced 3 faction RTS ever seen. But Starcraft is 10 years old now and it deserves and update and a continuation of its excellent single player story. I know it may be hard to understand, but "topping" something doesn't have to mean more profit or more units sold. It can also mean just making a better game.
  • I mean, there will be as always fanboys living in the past wishing that SCII was SC, but I thing, if they keep the main gameplay (which is not too hard, because all strategy games are ****nearly**** the same) and then they add some better graphics, cool armies, weapons, music, etc... They have a winner there... Of course there will always be fanboys living in the past ...(repeat at nauseum)

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by VorpalEdge (967279)
      (offtopic)
      I would agree with your statement if you meant only the most famous RTS games (Starcraft/Command and Conquer, at least the early games, and probably Warcraft). However, there's a decent amount of games beneath the radar that are actually quite awesome and play quite differently. Refer to the Homeworld series by Relic Studios. Also, lately, Relic has been putting out some decent RTSs based around the principle of capturing strategic points on the map for resources instead of mining them (see: Wa
  • Cavedog managed to top Starcraft before Starcraft was even released, so it should be too hard for Blizzard to do the same.

    Then again, this is Blizzard we're talking about...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by shoptroll (544006)
      Top it in sales or critical acclaim? Yeah some places like Gamespot rated TA higher than Starcraft, but if TA wasn't moddable the game would've been died years ago. TA was sunk by Starcraft due to the tightly integrated Battle.net system. Cavedog put out Boneyards to compete but that was only in the year or so prior to the company's death. Overall though, SC was better recieved by the press. Even then you're looking at a couple fractions of points. Do a comparison on Gamerankings if you need proof. B
    • Cavedog managed to top Starcraft before Starcraft was even released, so it should be too hard for Blizzard to do the same.

      Then again, this is Blizzard we're talking about...

      You mean by failing to stay solvent and selling drastically fewer copies?

      TA is more in line with competing with Command and conquer since the gameplay resembled that one more. It was all defence and big rushes. It's popularity is mainly with those who enjoy that play style. SC sold to a different and more numerous crowd of twitch RTS pla

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Boogaroo (604901)
        The reason Cavedog failed was because of TA: Kingdoms which was a horridly crappy game. I only wish I could have returned the thing. Their online play was very demanding on connections as well with massive numbers of bullets and other things to send. Dialup connections of the day had some troubles with that. Bonyards wasn't available right away either, and while it was a great idea, it was poorly done. Not that Starcraft was immune with de-synced games and the like, but it was way better than Boneyards. (Lo
    • You'll no doubt get howled down by Blizzard fanboys, but I totally agree with you. Total Annihilation has a level of depth and subtlety that wasn't matched in an RTS until... well, Supreme Commander.

      It beggars belief that many 'modern' RTS games (like C&C3) STILL don't do some of the more obviously good things that TA implemented.

      Starcraft was a great game, but it was simplistic and relied very heavily on the "Unit X beats unit Y but is itself beaten by unit Z" philosophy. TA and Supreme Commander are

  • Can? Most likely. Will? We'll see. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Opportunist (166417) on Thursday May 31 2007, @02:07PM (#19342045)
    At least it's not EA. Or we'd get SC1 in 1600x1200 with true 3D, zooming and surround sound. But since it's not, it's actually quite possible we get a totally new game.

    What made SC1 was the perfect balance. Sure, it took a few patches, but essentially, it was balanced to the extreme. I attribute my inability to win as a Protoss more to my inability to play the game well rather than a balance issue (I get my ass whipped regularely by other people playing Protoss... there's a reason why you rarely see me at those tournament finals, ya know...), if they manage to get SC2 well balanced again, it's a seller.

    Let's face it, people. After the "ohhh shiny" effect wears off, which is usually after a month tops, what's left is whether the game is fun to play or not. And fun in a multiplayer RTS game hangs mostly on game balance while at the same time offering actually different sides with different units (hello Supreme Commander...), and strategies that you have to adapt to the side you play, and the side you play against. And SC1 had that down to the point.

    My guess is that the success, especially the long time success, of SC2 hang on balance. Not graphics, not sound, not handling, not interface (as long as they don't overload it and make it unplayable). Balance or not balance will be the decider that tips the balance in favor or against SC2.
    • Given the WoW development team's current methodology of "for the next 3-6 months, Warlocks, Warriors and Hunters will be grossly overpowered, Shamans, Mages and Holy Priests can suck an egg" I wouldn't put much faith in Blizzard's ability to generally 'balance' a game any longer. I hope I'm proven wrong when it comes to SC2.

      • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

        by Tridus (79566)
        The problem with WoW balance is that its really two games in one: PvE and PvP. Balancing one often means breaking balance in the other.

        Though in some cases both are out of whack: Holy/Disc Priests have the worst 31 and 41 talents in the game, in any situation. (They're also the least popular, fully 84% of Holy Priests skip their 41, and 77% skip the 31 too.)
        • I think that hits the nail on the head. I wondered the same thing in regards to Diablo II balancing.

          It really comes down to what player group you cater to. PvP tends to be a small subset of the overall population, so ideally Blizzard should focus more on PvE balancing.

          It's debates like this that makes me appreciate PvP in Kingdom of Loathing, where you have a series of randomly selected challenges that check players stats, equipment and a ton of other random stats they track inside the game to determine a
      • Balancing WoW in SC/RTS terms:

        9 races/factions with 3 separate and viable tech trees fighting in two or more drastically different types of battle.

        Heck, that's oversimplifying it by a long shot.

        Blizzard doesn't just have to account for every class, but every class spec. Not just every class spec, but every class spec/gear combination. Not just every class spec/gear combination, but every group dynamic possible. Not just every group dynamic possible, but every situation that group dynamic is going to face.

        Th
    • "Or we'd get SC1 in 1600x1200 with true 3D, zooming and surround sound."

      Frankly, I'd love to see that. And a bit of U/I updating, larger groups, etc.

      SC1 is a blast, but it's ugly, especially on a laptop. Fix that, add a new race or two, and I'd happily fork over my $50.

    • Re:Can? Most likely. Will? We'll see. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by lawpoop (604919) on Thursday May 31 2007, @02:45PM (#19342653) Homepage Journal
      Balance is the secret. Blizzard spent two years polishing the balance of WCIII. *Two* whole years just balancing the races. That's why they sell #1 titles for years.

      There are plenty of other games that have better controls, better features, less repetition and clicking, more races, equal or better storytelling, better graphics. But the one thing that they do not have that blizzard does is racial balance. That's what truly makes the multiplayer experience a game, where any round could almost always go any way, instead of it always being a blow-out because one player knew the surefire technique. Blizzard's games are about strategy, not tricks.

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by shoptroll (544006)
        Agreed. Blizzard and polish are two words that go together. Hell, after Starcraft they went back to Warcraft II and dealt with some long-standing dumb bugs (ie. they broke attack-move going from War1 to War2) added some nifty small things from SC and Bnet support and put the thing out as a budget title. They even started a weekly/monthly map download program but dropped it soon after they realized people weren't playing it as much as Starcraft.

        They also kept Starcraft's "Map of the _____" program going s
    • Balance of power between the three races isn't the only important balance that Blizzard needs to get right. There's also the balance to get the right level of unit capability complexity.

      Brood War unit types got a little more complex compared to the original SC. For instance, blinding was introduced, but medics could heal it. The more different kinds of capabilities you need to worry about balancing, the harder you have to thing about the game. And if your mental juggling drops just one or two of those b
      • "From the videos they released it looks JUST LIKE SC1 at 1600x1200."

        Either you didn't watch the videos very carefully or you never really played SC1. Or both.

        • I Played SC for years and watched the videos and screen shots of SC2 very closely and can say that SC2 looks to be SC1 with higher resolution 3D graphics with a few new units added and game balance adjusted for those units, as well as a new single player story line. So I have to agree with the parent commenter.

          Of course this is what SC2 should be so I don't really have any problem with it. If SC2 was anything other than that then it wouldn't be SC2, it would be something else with the Star Craft name at
  • Penny Arcade li... OH WAIT, it's already in the summary. Crap.

  • No, they really can't (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tridus (79566) on Thursday May 31 2007, @02:26PM (#19342321) Homepage
    For all the people who played and loved Starcraft, they'll be comparing Starcraft 2 against the feelings they got playing Starcraft ten years ago, colored by the fact that after ten years its really easy to remember things more fondly then how you felt about them originally.

    They could make the best RTS on the market, and it still wouldn't "top" Starcraft in the eyes of many of the fans. Its an impossible goal, because there is no real way to judge it.

    Hopefully they'll just focus on trying to make a good game in the spirit of Starcraft. If they can do that, I'll be happy.

    • Re:No, they really can't (Score:5, Informative)

      by brkello (642429) on Thursday May 31 2007, @03:04PM (#19342917)
      I'm playing through Starcraft again right now and I still enjoy it as much now as I did then. Unlike a lot of other games, Starcraft does have the staying power to actually still be considered a good game. Yeah, I agree, some games you can't go back to. But Starcraft you can and most the people I know have played through Starcraft many times over the years...not just 10 years ago.
  • I watched the gameplay video and I liked most of what I saw in it, but they're talking an awful lot about recapturing the things that made starcraft great - only the things they focus on are counter strategies, battle.net play and diverse factions. Which is great, but that alone doesn't make a new starcraft - and I'm worried that Blizzard won't be able to own up to the great gameplay they used too.

    Which seem to be a problem in recent Blizzard releases, because where the gameplay itself used to be their s
  • I hope they make a decent single player campaign. It almost feels like a formula - 7 missions per race, with just unlocking the highest tech at the very last mission, and the first missions more or less a trainer. I do enjoy multi player, but so many of the games feel like they are purposely cut short to sell an expansion pack. RTS games seem to get shorter and shorter. Just finished Supreme Commander, and compared to its earlier incarnation of Total Annihilation, it felt really short. (even with the 2+ hour expanding map missions) Still - glad to have an update to what I rank as one of my favorite games!

    • they focus on multi (Score:4, Insightful)

      by sentientbrendan (316150) on Friday June 01 2007, @07:28AM (#19350133)
      they focus on multiplay mainly these days... but yeah, I'd like to see a campaign as good as starcraft's if possible, as that's a big part of what drew people in... Warcraft by comparison has an incredibly corny plot. I couldn't stand to play through the frozen throne campaign. I felt like I was torturing myself.

      Starcraft by comparison was much more about the single player campaign. They ended up making the multiplay pretty good, but you will notice that there are tons of units that are totally useless in multiplayer mode (infected command center? light and dark archons? zerg queen?). Multi play in pretty much every serious game became mostly about being really good at producing lots of low level units really quickly really early. Later in the game someone *might* mass battlecruisers or carriers if it's BGH.

      Personally, I'm hoping they're trim the units (it looks like they've already done that actually) and make nukes more useful. Nukes were one of the most fun things in SC, but also one of the most impractical (you could make it work... but there was almost always a better strat.). Nukes should be a little less powerful, but much easier to obtain. At the very least I don't want to have to built extra command centers...
  • Starcraft was a pretty good game, but nothing beats the old Total Annihilation for sophistication and depth of gameplay. It just seems that people would rather micromanage zerglings than deal with TA, with its unlimited group sizes, multitude of units, creative resource model, and so on.

    The thing I like most about TA is the resource model. Unlike in nearly every other RTS on earth, resources are never depleted. I found it absurd that one could deplete an entire forest or mineral deposit in the course of one
    • Starcraft was a pretty good game, but nothing beats the old Total Annihilation for sophistication and depth of gameplay. It just seems that people would rather micromanage zerglings than deal with TA, with its unlimited group sizes, multitude of units, creative resource model, and so on.

      The thing I like most about TA is the resource model. Unlike in nearly every other RTS on earth, resources are never depleted. I found it absurd that one could deplete an entire forest or mineral deposit in the course of one
      • TA/SupCom also have no tech tree to begin with. They are not so much trees as they are rods. You build Tech Level 1 plant for vehicle type of your choice (and SupCom simplified this even further by merging vehicles and bots into a Land Factory) which gets you the engineering unit for the next step up the tech tree. There's no external dependencies like you find in other strategy games (even turn-based ones like Civ and Heroes of M&M have tech trees).

        The philosophy of Taylor's RTS games is to cut out
        • TA/SupCom also have no tech tree to begin with. They are not so much trees as they are rods. You build Tech Level 1 plant for vehicle type of your choice (and SupCom simplified this even further by merging vehicles and bots into a Land Factory) which gets you the engineering unit for the next step up the tech tree. There's no external dependencies like you find in other strategy games (even turn-based ones like Civ and Heroes of M&M have tech trees).

          I agree with most of what you just said except the tec

  • Blizzard raped my childhood! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Stickerboy (61554) on Thursday May 31 2007, @04:32PM (#19344257) Homepage
    Er, I guess it's too early for that post right now... come back in a few years.
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