I wouldn't really call StarCraft a "space strategy" game in the same way that Homeworld is. Despite having "Star" in the name, you never get too far away from the ground... the basic mechanics are very much a traditional RTS. Homeworld is, of course, a bit different.
Well, StarCraft was originally conceived as a 'space' strategy game, which is why there are still several 'space platform' levels in the game as it was released. Now I'm looking for a game that can combine the freedom of movement of Homeworld with the variety of StarCraft.
The key word there being "platform." The majority of the units in the game were ground units and all the structures were ground structures. Sadly, aside from Homeworld 1 and 2 even other space based RTS's tend to restrain the player to a two dimensional plane. Some games will have ships align themselves automatically in three dimensions (Sins of a Solar Empire for example) but usually you only get 2D controls.
Well, the great disadvantage of a uniform 3d space is that there are no real obstacles to work with. If you want to attack the enemy, you move towards them in a straight line. You can't 'work with the terrain' to improve your defenses. There's no high ground, and no opportunity to sneak up on your enemy. Which sort of limits the strategies you can use. Perhaps incorporating gravity wells and orbital mechanics into a game would remedy that, but it'd have to be done in a way that's still intuitive to the user.
I didn't think it limited strategies, more like it asked you to come up with a lot of different ones. Although it has been a while since I played, the last level I remember playing was on the original, when you have to dock all your fighters and take a fleet of frigates and above to the enemy (something about flares damaging your fighter class ships). Starcraft was all about atmosphere and characters as well as the units and terrain.
Starcraft.org released an editorial on the Zerg: http://www.starcraft.org/starcraft2/editorials/4 All I can say for now is "interesting".
Very interesting, though I have to admit at this point that I'm a little mixed about some of the described abilities. I hope Blizzard doesn't make the mistake of making new abilities that don't make much practical sense because they look cool; the Guardians being able to create Broodlings with each shot is one such possibility. I'm also unsure about the queen - it seems like the new unit has little in common with its original namesake, and they could have given it a different name.
I tend not to believe anything I read about StarCraft 2 until it goes gold. Everything's constantly changing, with units getting added and dropped, abilities getting tweaked, and whatnot. Inside a month everything in that Zerg article could change.
Some of the trailers were really cool. And I like some of the features they've introduced. Two things I'm not quite as happy with right now (though as Rat Boy pointed out just about everything can still change at this point) are the Queen and the fact that they've removed detection from the Overlord. I always thought it was cool that the Zerg had that. It made it a real challenge to operate with Ghosts and the likes when playing against them. I hope they'll keep a certain amount of continuity in things like that.
You should check out Sins of a Solar empire. It's not nearly as tactical as Homeworld. It's really more strategic than tactical. But, if you've ever played Master of Orion, it's about as close to a real time version of that game as you could get. It's really a superb space strategy game.
The Overlord no longer has detection as a base ability, but it can regain it when it evolves into an Overseer. This was to balance the Zerg a little more, because of the sheer amount of free detection they have in classic StarCraft. It's less clear whether it will still be a transport, or whether the new Nydus system will have made that obsolete. I'm curious how it will produce Creep.
Man this makes me life difficult. I was going to buy an Xbox 360. Now party of me is contemplating holding out and upgrading my comp.
It has occurred to me that in many ways, the Zerg have been made more like the other races, not less. The Queen unit is cool, but is essentially the Zerg equivalent of the Terran Nomad. The Nydus worms will be more flexible, but have a limited capacity, so they'll function in a manner comparable to the Terran and Protoss shuttles (assuming these haven't been scrapped). The Overlord generates creep, which is very similar to the Protoss mobile pylon.
Yeah, I wonder what the limitations on the Nydus worms are. I'm under the assumption they can only transport a set number of units which can fit into the Nydus warrens, but trailers show one worm unloading a ton of banelings. The Protoss phase prism, which is the mobile pylon, actually makes some sense to me given how wrecked the once mighty Protoss military is. It has other uses too - it seems like it might be a replacement for the arbiter, as it has a similar but more advanced teleportation ability.
Yes, in the gameplay demos, they talked about 'warping in' units, which used to be the Protoss designation for building units using a Gateway or a Stargate, but then they showed six or eight Stalkers warping in at once. If we're going to be able to move any Protoss unit from any pylon to any other pylon or phase prism at no cost, that'll be incredibly powerful, and undoubtedly something that'll be paid for in one way or another (unit effectiveness, or unit cost).
The first update on the official site in 3 weeks and it's this April Fool's joke bullshit? Give me a fucking break . Blizzard should hire Maddox to run their website for them, at least we'd be guaranteed an update every 6 months or so.