StarCraft II

[TWD]

Familiarity breeds contempt. Especially in video games. I know I might sound prejudiced, but off of the description you've given us, it sounds like StarCraft II isn't a spectacular feeling sequel game that most players like me have been hoping for.

This issue is certainly the bane of most sequels. However, it's really hard to say how it will apply with StarCraft. What they're doing is just very different from anything I've ever seen attempted before. They're making absolutely no attempt to change the core of the game. It's just StarCraft with a completely different set of tactics to use. People are pretty happy with how the original plays, and this is really just a graphical update with a new set of units that will hopefully keep people interested for another 10 years.

The only real revolutionary features in the game all have to do with battle.net, and all they're really doing is creating the community features that we've been wanting all along. The stuff like ladders and tournaments that other RTS games were never quite able to get perfect.

 

[Wail of Suicide]

At this point though, Starcraft 2 doesn't need to be doing anything spectacularly new. People who haven't played SC in awhile probably remember it with rose-tinted glasses -- The resolutions it supports are low, the view is extremely tight, the interface takes up a huge amount of screen space, etc.

A lot of people (myself included) would buy Starcraft again just to be able to resolve the myriad non-gameplay related annoyances that come from playing a game released 11 years ago. It's not like this is Starcraft 2010 and Blizzard needs to provide compelling reasons to upgrade from Starcraft 2009.

Of course, I also hope it does do a lot of things new. Zerg and Protoss in particular are stuck with a lot of kind of dead weight or highly situational units. Their gameplay is very static compared to Terran (who, despite being a slow turtle race due to their overpowered Siege Tanks, have tons of options to counter anything opponents do, even if most of those options aren't nearly as good as more siege tanks).

 

[SleepyHe4d]

TBH, as much as I love SC, I hate RTS gameplay that is based around micro. I'm not a fan of RTS is the first place but when it doesn't stay true to its name (strategy), I think that is pretty stupid. Will definitely play SC2 for the story and custom maps though.

 

[Sir_Brizz]

Can't agree more sleepy.... who LIKES micro?

 

[Fuzzle]

Self-proclaimed "pros" who are convinced that the more "skill" a game takes to play, the more hardcore they are.

An acquaintance of mine insists that starcraft 2 is "dumbed down" because you can select more than 10 units now. Whenever I ask him to clarify, he just reiterates that it takes more skill to be restricted with commanding 10 units at the time. He feels the same way about things like improved pathfinding, hotkeys/shortcuts (like being able to build a unit without selecting it's building), and so on.

You can imagine how he feels about supreme commander's ferry system. I explained it to him for the lulz and some of the words he used were "win button", "for kids", and "fisher price gameplay".

 

[Slainchild]

An acquaintance of mine insists that starcraft 2 is "dumbed down" because you can select more than 10 units now.

There will be likely be hundreds of people just like him whining about crap like this on the forums from day one (beta). Hopefully Blizzard don't take too much of their "advice" on board...

Either way the official forums will be a place to avoid if you want to keep your sanity.

 

[Defeat]

Self-proclaimed "pros" who are convinced that the more "skill" a game takes to play, the more hardcore they are.

An acquaintance of mine insists that starcraft 2 is "dumbed down" because you can select more than 10 units now. Whenever I ask him to clarify, he just reiterates that it takes more skill to be restricted with commanding 10 units at the time. He feels the same way about things like improved pathfinding, hotkeys/shortcuts (like being able to build a unit without selecting it's building), and so on.

You can imagine how he feels about supreme commander's ferry system. I explained it to him for the lulz and some of the words he used were "win button", "for kids", and "fisher price gameplay".

You should really explain to him that there is a difference between making something annoying easier and making the actual core game easier thereby noobifying or dumbing down the game as some like to call it. An example of the later would be MW2 where the guns have literally no recoil, kick, or sway compared to CoD4. When someone makes an annoying process simpler or easier, it actually helps more people get into the game where they can concentrate on the core gameplay such as positioning units, figuring out what units to build, how to counter a certain attack and so on.

However this subject can draw a fine line and even my example could probably be debated. I supposed a slightly better example would be how in CSPromod they added how much money each person has to the team scoreboard so the team no longer needs to type how much money they have and.

 

[DarQraven]

I enjoy micro. How in hells name are micro and strategy mutually exclusive?
It's not like you can beat a strategically superior player if you can just click fast enough.

On the contrary, a player using a better strategy will beat anyone, as long as he isn't extremely sucky with his micromanagement. Micro is just one aspect, comparable to having good movement in an FPS. The tactically better FPS player will still win, but his movement is one aspect he'll have to train if he wants to become really good.

I'd say micro-oriented RTS games should be called RTST for real time strategy and tactics, if any name change would be needed.

I'll agree that some SC fans are exaggerating a bit that multiple building selection will noob down the game. For the average player it won't really matter. What they are talking about, though, is at a pro level.
At this moment, every single pro gamer is able to macro perfectly. Every counter to every build has basically been researched to death. Timings for certain pushes or windows of opportunity for a certain race/build are all known.
Also, most pro gamers know exactly how to use the strengths of certain units while abusing the weaknesses of others.

What actually wins matches is being able to multitask both at the same time.

The concern is that playing down micromanagement will turn matches at that level into stale macrofests, some of the most uninteresting matches to watch.

I find it surprising how this forum has gone from "UT3 is noobed down, shame on Epic" some years ago to "meh, noob it down some more. Pros are just whiners".

 

[TWD]

I think the important thing to understand about StarCraft is that outside of the special unit abilities none of it was really intentional. It's just a natural biproduct of having really strong tactical gameplay. Contrast this with games like Supreme Commander. In order to get rid of it you have to create a game with an extreme emphasis on strategic gameplay. For instance to the uninformed observer most of the units in Supreme Commander appear to be exactly the same. This simply didn't resonate with as many players.

I think it's just silly to complain about it and argue for changing it when A) it's a small component that really only makes a big difference on the highest levels of play and B) this is really the sole reason that the StarCraft style RTS has been so much more popular than anything else.

Also to comment on the no lan thing in the tags. This is absolutely no different than if StarCraft 2 used steam. They're using the exact same model. It's just that battle.net adds to it by adding ladders and rankings.

 

[dragonfliet]

Also to comment on the no lan thing in the tags. This is absolutely no different than if StarCraft 2 used steam. They're using the exact same model. It's just that battle.net adds to it by adding ladders and rankings.

Not in the least. I can play Steam games over LAN if it is supported by the developers. LAN is lag-free gaming at its best and not having to all jack into the internet is marvelous. They haven't added any value by removing LAN, they've simply removed it. Battle.net may be great and all, but lack of LAN is lame.

~Jason

 

[TWD]

Not in the least. I can play Steam games over LAN if it is supported by the developers. LAN is lag-free gaming at its best and not having to all jack into the internet is marvelous. They haven't added any value by removing LAN, they've simply removed it. Battle.net may be great and all, but lack of LAN is lame.

~Jason

Yeah except for that everything you said is false. My understanding is you can play LAN in StarCraft you just have to be connected to battle.net in order to validate your game. It's exactly the same way it works with all the Valve games.

 

[dragonfliet]

Yeah except for that everything you said is false. My understanding is you can play LAN in StarCraft you just have to be connected to battle.net in order to validate your game. It's exactly the same way it works with all the Valve games.

There are two interviews, that pertain to this: one in which they say absolutely no LAN and anothere where they talk about, okay, MAYBE you can play over LAN, but only if you're also connected to the internet. As lame as that is, it's better than nothing...

As for steam, having played HL2 Deathmatch over LAN in offline mode (yeah, it's lame, but whatever), it's there. Steam 1, battle.net 0

~Jason

 

[Fuzzle]

You can play steam lan-games in offline mode, everyone needs to continously be on the internet to play starcraft2 lan.

Edit: beat'd.

 

[Defeat]

Pretty sure there will be LAN in the sense that the game is P2P and even if you have to log on to battle.net first you will still be connected to your buddy across the room.

 

[Slainchild]

Why wouldn't you be connected to the internet at a LAN??

 

[Fuzzle]

Why wouldn't you be connected to the internet at a LAN??

5 people (maybe they don't all have wireless (or wire!)), one router.

It's not impossible - heck, sometimes/usually it goes smoothly - but it can be a headache. If that headache is simply due to DRM, it's a ragey unneccesary headache.

 

[Slainchild]

Well if they can't set that up then they don't deserve to play the game imhotep

 

[TWD]

You can play steam lan-games in offline mode, everyone needs to continously be on the internet to play starcraft2 lan.

Edit: beat'd.

Then I stand corrected. I just remember everyone whining about similar issues when they first required steam for counterstrike.

 

[Kantham]

imhotep

Que?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imhotep

 

[IronMonkey]

Why wouldn't you be connected to the internet at a LAN??

As we sometimes do - borrow a big conference room at the office. It's better than having people scattered through a house.

We're not allowed to connect personal PCs to the office network. We supply our own switch and cables so no Internet but we don't need it. We bring along a web server with all the patches, maps etc.

In the case of SC, we also like to run old patch versions (i.e. before carriers got nerfed).