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Games Entertainment

Blizzard Still Has Hope For StarCraft Ghost 51

Posted by Zonk from the nova-is-still-alive dept.
Next Generation reports on a panel from the Hollywood and Games summit, where several influential names in Massively Multiplayer games discussed ways to connect virtual worlds with other media. Interesting stuff, but the piece points out something that you probably didn't know: Blizzard still wants StarCraft:Ghost to get made. Ghost was the much-delayed, and then cancelled, shooter title set in the StarCraft world. Rob Pardo speaks to its possible future while making a point about commitment to quality: "[Blizzard is] just willing to cancel the products that fail. That's important to our brand. We're willing to bite the bullet and write off those expenses. Sometimes six months into development, the idea doesn't flow ... Our most recent one was Starcraft Ghost. With that game we were very stubborn. I still believe in that game and the characters but we were not able to execute at the level we wanted to...Rather than work on that we had to focus on our other games. We're hoping one day to return to it."
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Blizzard Still Has Hope For StarCraft Ghost More

Blizzard Still Has Hope For StarCraft Ghost

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  • oh boy (Score:2, Funny)

    by jollyreaper ( 513215 )
    Game over, man! Game over!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Trails ( 629752 )
      Maybe we could build a fire, play a couple rounds of starcraft, huh? Why don't we try that?

  • Is it safe to say... (Score:3, Funny)

    by ajenteks ( 943860 ) on Thursday June 28, 2007 @04:30PM (#19680853)
    ...that:
    maybe Blizzard is haunted by SC:Ghost?
    SC:Ghost is reaching out from beyond the grave?
    a blizzard will have to freeze Hell over before SC:Ghost is resurrected?

    ...

    Sorry folks, I'm here till Friday :(

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by w3stfa11 ( 1093355 )
      With WoW expansion in development and Starcraft 2, I don't see Starcraft Ghost coming out in the next 3 years.
    • "We're willing to bite the bullet and write off those expenses."

      Kramer : All these big companies, they write off everything.
      Jerry : You don't even know what a write off is.
      Kramer : Do you?
      Jerry : No, I don't.
      Kramer : But they do and they are the ones writing it off.

  • DNF (Score:1, Funny)

    by reytron ( 1093289 )
    [insert Duke Nukem Forever comment here]
  • Not only because they make great games, but they make multiplatform games. I was thrilled when I was able get the PC CD plop it in my Mac and there was an installer for it :) WC2 forever lol

    Though what they did with the freecraft project kinda sucked.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Toridas ( 742267 )
      Too bad SC:Ghost was supposed to be for consoles only. I was really disappointed in Blizzard for that one.
      • Why were you disappointed? It had been years since they had done a console game, and that's where they got their start doin console development as Silicon and Synapse. They hadn't even ported (or let someone else port) Diablo II to any console. A Blizzard console game is way overdue.

  • and i still hope to some day be a rock-star/astronaut that saves the universe and bags a hot babe in the process. as a middle aged father of 3 it seems a little less likely that it will work out -- but i still hope.

  • Poor planning and expectations (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kornkid606 ( 1076023 ) <bjohnso2@digipen.edu> on Thursday June 28, 2007 @05:04PM (#19681459) Homepage
    It seems strange to me that blizzard would not have been able to pull off ghost to their own standard of quality. From the sound of it, it would seem that the designers didn't have a good idea of what they wanted from the start. Also, they need to realize that in a market flooded with shooters, it is hard to put one out nowadays that is new and does something that hasn't been done before. I think if they had a good idea of what they wanted from the start and a solid plan for how to make it happen, SC: Ghost could have turned out great. Not revolutionary, mind you, but a good, fun, solid stealth-shooter. I honestly don't think it isn't for any amount of timing or flow that Ghost slipped through the cracks, it was just poor expectations and poor planning. That's just my opinion though.
    • blizzard has never really made revolutionary games nor have they been particularly afraid of going into saturated markets. What they are good at is making very solid games that are accessible to just about anyone with a computer made in the last half decade. Starcraft is a perfect example. The game would not do well on a comparison chart of features to other RTS of its time(most notably Total Annihilation), it was released into a gaming world flooded with RTS games, but it was just plain fun, well balance
      • Just well-balanced? Starcraft is perhaps the most balanced game in existence, when you consider that there's essentially no similarities whatsoever between the three races.
        • Based on that logic, Guilty Gear: Slash is more balanced, given the diversity of characters and that there are even more characters!
          • I have not played Guilty Gear Slash, but I have played Guilty Gear XX, and there is very little balance there whatsoever. My point was that balancing extremely diverse entities is a challenge in and of itself. Diversity alone is not enough.
      • I'd argue that at least Diablo was fairly genre defining, if not revolutionary in its implementation.

        I can't seem to recall any games that were "Diablo style" back in the day. And no, Nethack doesn't count :P
        • genre defining and revolutionary are not necessarily the same thing. You need to look no further than starcraft to see a perfect example. There are very few i would really consider in both categories.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by king-manic ( 409855 )
      It seems strange to me that blizzard would not have been able to pull off ghost to their own standard of quality. From the sound of it, it would seem that the designers didn't have a good idea of what they wanted from the start. Also, they need to realize that in a market flooded with shooters, it is hard to put one out nowadays that is new and does something that hasn't been done before. I think if they had a good idea of what they wanted from the start and a solid plan for how to make it happen, SC: Ghost

  • Good. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by morari ( 1080535 )
    I was looking forward to Ghost after its initial announcement and would still be interested in it should it come back up in the future. As blasphemous as it probably is to say, I'm not in the least moved by the notion of World of WarCraft or StarCraft 2, so I have to wait for Ghost or Diablo III (or a new installment of the Lost Vikings or Rock 'n' Roll Racing!) before Blizzard catches my attention again.

  • I played it (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sciros ( 986030 ) on Thursday June 28, 2007 @05:10PM (#19681575) Journal
    The game was in playable form at E3 2005 and I was there as a correspondent, so I got some good demos from the Blizzard staff. It was there on all 3 consoles as far as I can recall, and although the Cube one didn't have online multiplayer, all 3 looked cool and played well.

    A 3rd-person shooter of that sort would be very welcome by folks who miss the good old days of Jet Force Gemini, and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the game 2 years ago. It also appeared nearly finished!

    However, the additional delays basically made it a title that would be released well into the 360's lifespan, making it look very outdated. I do hope they get a chance to overhaul the graphics engine and maybe add whatever content they felt was missing, and release the game.

    (Though, the real deal-maker would be if they made it possible to play through the game as either Nova (the ghost) or a Protoss hero, and possibly some hyper-intelligent Hydralisk or something.)

    • (Though, the real deal-maker would be if they made it possible to play through the game as either Nova (the ghost) or a Protoss hero, and possibly some hyper-intelligent Hydralisk or something.)


      In other words, Alien vs Predator 3.
  • I didn't think it was possible to image an entire universe, but apparently they really want to try to ghost Starcraft. I guess there's always a ghost of a chance.
  • So finish it. It's their game, they have the developers. They're already paying them. So finish it, it's not like there's any real barrier that Blizzard has to cross to get it done.
  • I don't want to have to choose between it and DNF!
  • I think its actually just good timing in general that they shelved it but didnt give up on it. For years we've been pounded with shooters that did nothing new culminating in Doom 3 a couple years ago, but now the technology is far enough along that they can stop worrying about the graphics horse race and start innovating. Bioshock and Crysis look amazing and they have all sorts of bells and whistles which are supposed to change the way you play. Just look at the difference between Prey and STALKER, games wi

  • Release it for Wii (Score:3, Interesting)

    by VooDooAddict ( 680516 ) on Thursday June 28, 2007 @08:54PM (#19684111)
    If they release it for Wii: - People will be more accepting of slightly outdated graphics. - Blizzard developers get some experience with coding controls for the Wii. - Introduce Starcraft and Blizzard to a whole new audience. - They can start printing money by re-releasing the classic on Nintendo's DS handheld and/or the Wii.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by FleaPlus ( 6935 )
      If they release it for Wii: - People will be more accepting of slightly outdated graphics. - Blizzard developers get some experience with coding controls for the Wii. - Introduce Starcraft and Blizzard to a whole new audience.

      I agree. Additionally, I think the rave reviews of the control scheme in the recently-released Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition [metacritic.com] indicate that the Wii remote/nunchuk controls are ideal for a third-person shooter like Starcraft Ghost.
  • Yeah just keep going....
  • http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/06/23 [penny-arcade.com]

    One of my all-time favorite Penny Arcades.
  • Anyone else think Ghost was canceled ("failed") because every Blizzard resource (and then some) was poured into World of Warcraft?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by k_187 ( 61692 )
      Given that Blizzard proper was never developing it in the first place (they farmed it out somewhere else). No, I don't.
  • When Blizzard is making about 135 Million from the 9 million subscribers to World of Warcraft, you would think they had a little extra to put in another project. I guess it is all going to Starcraft 2. I hope it is good ^^
  • But I'm still busy having hope for Warcraft Adventures.
    • Apparently a lot of the puzzles/storylines for Warcraft Adventures made it into World of Warcraft as quests - there probably isn't enough original content to resurrect the project.

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