My Dearest Blizzard Entertainment: Fuck You.

[Cain]

I don't like playing multiplayer, so this means to me that I'll have to wait longer and pay more to really get to play the protoss or zerg. That's annoying.

Other RTS's have fewer campaigns on the original release. For example, Company of Heroes (my fave RTS) originally only had one campaign, so there was no campaign for the Axis. As a result, I rarely played Axis. That's not as big of a deal because the difference between the Axis and Allies isn't huge.

But, it is a big deal with Starcraft. The hallmark of the series is that the races are so different. So, again, I won't really get to delve into the protoss or the zerg without paying more and waiting longer. That sucks. I haven't been as excited about Starcraft II, partly because I really love the Company of Heroes style of RTS. Now, I'm even less excited.

At least I have Dawn of War II to look forward to.

 

[archeryguy1701]

I could never get into the original SC because I couldn't stand the AI always being 9 steps ahead of any strategy I had. I was willing to give this a shot since SC has always been hailed as the "Best RTS ever" and I was expecting a decent AI. But, I'm not going to buy 1 game for the price of three. I do believe I will just stick with CnC.

 

[darthraidr]

I still play StarCraft, too, but if ActiBlizzard thinks it can get away with charging full-price -- or near-full-price -- for three packs that on their own would comprise a complete game, the company has another thing coming.

From what i understand, SC had about 30 single player missions. SC2:Terran is going to have 30 single player missions.
SC2:Zerg will have 30 single player missions.
SC2:Protoss will have 30 single player missions.

combine the 3 packs together, you have 90 missions... quite a bit more than the original...

This, along with the announcement that Battle.net is moving from the free service it's been for more than a decade towards a fee-based model, reeks of Activision management taking hold of Blizzard's direction.

where did you hear that Battle.net is no longer free? i heard them say they wanted to keep it free. i also heard them mention time and time again that they don't consider price points until closer to completion. but hey, maybe my wife and i both heard wrong at the blizzcon pannels.

 

[Rii]

I think a lot of the outrage can justifiably traced to the fact that everyone was expecting to get all three campaigns in one game like the original. Any leftovers would have been moved to an expansion. Now we're being asked to pay possibly full price three times to get what was originally promised to be in one game.

Starcraft: 32 missions
Brood War: 24 missions
Starcraft 2: 90+ missions

The difference between this model and the traditional expansion model is that they're announcing it in advance and that the core multiplayer client will remain identical, as opposed to the usual practice of requiring users to own both the original title and its expansions. So long as Blizzard can ensure that each campaign is satisfying in its own right whilst also contributing to a larger arc, I don't see the problem. I don't see too many Starcraft players complaining that they were "cheated" by Brood War and its continuation of the story.

 

[JonathonWally]

In other Blizzcon news, the Wizard class in Diablo III looks fucking awesome and WoW Live is patching to v3.0 next week. Patch looks to be coming in at around 1.5GB.

I can't wait for that freakin' patch. Elemental shamans might finally be viable in pvp!

BUS SHOCK!!

 

[Arrqh]

Starcraft: 32 missions
Brood War: 24 missions
Starcraft 2: 90+ missions

This is not about the number of missions (and it's disingenuous to consider all three campaigns, which will be seperate products, as part of Starcraft 2) but the lack of diversity in the campaigns. People were, reasonably, expecting three campaigns in one release. Now they're not getting them. So they're annoyed. Whether or not Blizzard makes enough content, at reasonable prices, remains to be seen and I'm not going to pass judgement on it either way... other then to express my dissapointment that the one I was looking forward to the most, the Protoss campaign, will likely be released 2 to 3 years after Starcraft 2 is... which is, in itself, at least a year out.

 

[archeryguy1701]

^That's another thing I worry about: the same 30 mission models being reused for each race... or having even fewer mission models, which means they will end up reusing them several times over.

 

[CommodoreKong]

More bad Blizzard news, it looks like they may start charging money to use Battle.net

 

[Rii]

it's disingenuous to consider all three campaigns, which will be seperate products, as part of Starcraft 2

It's also rather faster to type than the full title of all three releases. Call it three campaigns of thirty missions each if you like, the point remains that each campaign is approximately equal in length to all three campaigns in the original Starcraft put together.

then to express my dissapointment that the one I was looking forward to the most, the Protoss campaign, will likely be released 2 to 3 years after Starcraft 2 is... which is, in itself, at least a year out.

I believe the plan is for each release to include a "mini-campaign" for another race, so the initial Terran release will also feature a secondary Protoss campaign.

 

[IJD GAF]

This isn't really worth complaining about until we know:

1) how long each game is, in more concrete terms
2) how each game is priced.

That will mean the difference between blunder and brilliance.

 

[Arrqh]

It's also rather faster to type than the full title of all three releases. Call it three campaigns of thirty missions each if you like, the point remains that each campaign is approximately equal in length to all three campaigns in the original Starcraft put together.

And again... the issue isn't the amount of content, but what that content is made of. I would rather have three shorter campaigns in one game then three longer campaign in three separate purchases. I think a lot of people share that opinion which is where the disappointment is coming from.

 

[Rii]

And again... the issue isn't the amount of content, but what that content is made of. I would rather have three shorter campaigns in one game then three longer campaign in three separate purchases. I think a lot of people share that opinion which is where the disappointment is coming from.

Personally I'd rather have nine shorter campaigns across three releases. The idea of not waiting ten years between updates to the Starcraft universe is rather appealing.

 

[dragunzng]

I'm not exactly a huge PC gamer, or a Blizzard fan, so I haven't been paying a lot of attention to Blizzcon, but I've heard each campaign will be 30-40 hours long. I have no idea if this is true, but if it is, does it justify each one being on a separate disc?

Whatever the case, seems like a strange move from Blizzard, who to my knowledge go out of their way to please their fans.

 

[firehawk12]

Well, the other takeaway could be that they're having trouble with the game in terms of balancing or whatever and this gives them at least two major do-overs to fix the game.

 

[Mooch]

I'd be willing to bet the second and third campaigns will also include additonal tweaks or new units for each race, so in that sense they will be like expansions. I'm just guessing, though...

 

[Icy_Penguigo]

More bad Blizzard news, it looks like they may start charging money to use Battle.net

It's a good thing I don't give a shit about Battle.net. My friends and I have played SC on our own homemade LANs since SC1 came out. We'd better be able to do this with SC2. If not, Blizzard can suck my dick and die. They pull in like a trillion dollars a month off of WoW. How much more money do they need to make?

 

[darthraidr]

as stated above the terran campaign will have a protoss side mission. it may have some flashback missions (it also sounded like the zerg campaign may have a kerrigan as ghost flashback mission (from the SC2 Lore pannel)).

also, a larger single player campaign means they can introduce more units and different aspects to units that arent featured in MP. one example they gave was bunkers in the SP could be upgraded to hold 6 marines instead of 4. they also mentioned that older units could come back in the single player (so goliaths can make a brief comeback.)

 

[Rii]

More bad Blizzard news, it looks like they may start charging money to use Battle.net

In other news, T'Bonz may start charging for access to TrekBBS.

 

[Cain]

From IGN:

We asked about the timeline for the three StarCraft II games, using Valve's original prediction of shipping all three episodes of the Half-Life 2 episodes within a single year, but reality is that it will take more than more like three years. Pardo thought that was a great example and said, "It's a little bit similar to that in that it would be great if we could have them follow one year from one another; I think that's going to be our target, but certainly that's not a promise in any way. But I think that's going to be around the realm that we're going to be hoping for."

I don't want to wait 4 years or more for a single player Protoss campaign. That's ridiculous. In 4 years, I'll want to be playing Starcraft III, not Starcraft II part 3.

 

[Arrqh]

Well, the other takeaway could be that they're having trouble with the game in terms of balancing or whatever and this gives them at least two major do-overs to fix the game.

Which they could easily do in patches without breaking the campaign up.

In other news, T'Bonz may start charging for access to TrekBBS.

I'd stop coming here if I had to pay for access, and I won't use Battle.net if I have to pay for access. And again, it comes down to expectations... not only has Battle.net been free since it's inception, but the vast majority of non-MMO online services are free. In fact the only paid one I can think of is XBL, which provides access to significantly more then two games (assuming SC2 and D3).