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TBH, Starcraft 2 has gone the route of Duke Nukem Forever. It's going to have to tear my world apart now before I think of coughing up for it, especially if Kotick's involved. | |
I dunno Root, I doubt Blizzard are going to go bust anytime soon... It is going to need to be something special though. Especially if it wants to succeed in tearing away all those SC1 players. Although that sounds about as futile as making people stop playing Counter Strike and Source. | |
I was more angling for the idea that DNF would have had to cure cancer for it to have been accepted after all this time. When they dumped the Ghost Stealth game, and all the rest of the Starcraft goodies I was upset, and with the amount of units they're talking about, I can't see how anyone is going to cope with anything more complex than a Zerg/Tank/Arbiter rush. | |
The game is basically complete. And has been, for, like, a year; minus scripted events, and movies and the like. As near as I can tell, what they are doing is paying a bunch of south koreans to sit in a darkened room and play it competitively; searching for ways to exploit balance issues. Once this process is complete, the game will probably be of very high quality and a text-book definition of balance in the RTS genera, just like its predecessor. However, people will be bad at it, as they are at all blizzard games, and will blame the developers for being noobs and not knowing how to properly balance the game. | |
Still not entirely forgiven them for that. | |
I'm ignoring Starcraft II, because I'm just going to chalk it up to Starcraft Ghost syndrome, it'll mysteriously vanish from the site and no official statement will come till 4 days later. But hey if it does come out, awesomepants, then I'll be interested. | |
Me neither. And Lord of the Clans. Muttergrumble... Lord of the Clans looked awesome... Mutter... Now I've read the book, the storyline was sweeeeeeeet... Grumble... | |
I remain optimistic that it will come out in the first half. | |
I don't know. I'd always liked Blizzard's games, but their refusal to release a product that wasn't up to their standards after it was well into development - and it would have still sold like hotcakes even if it was crappy - was one of the things that first made me really respect them. What's wrong with having a commitment to integrity and quality?
It's been a grand total of two years since SC2 was announced, dude. Hardly DNF. | |
Let them take their time; as long as the game's good it will be worth the wait. Better than having them rush it and getting a half done game. | |
I think they should rename it Starcraft Forever...and ever...and ever..and ever..... Well after all SOMETHING has to fill the void Duke held for so many years. | |
See, that's fine. It's just that they cancelled it rather than making it into a quality game that we've come to expect from Blizzard. I understand why they did it, and I don't begrudge them for sticking to their principles. I just wish they'd looked at it and made the project everything they wanted it to be rather than 'indefinetly postponing' it. But hey, apparently Nova's going to pop up in SC2 so maybe that'll generate enough interest for them to revisit Ghost and make it everything it can be. Pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease. | |
Hrmm...tough one though. SC2 has been hinted at for a lot longer (almost since Brood Wars was released) and development was meant to start in 2003, which is a good 6 years. HL Episode 3 is going to have to climb a mountain at the moment though. | |
Still got nothing on DNF. And you're forgetting that the game's multiplayer has been almost 100% complete for a while now. Unless we were playing a mock-up at BlizzCon :P | |
Well, starcraft has content and much has been shown, and Blizzard has a nasty habit of delays.
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Given you beat Keane, I'd be more inclined to believe it ;) I dunno, my senses are tingling over this and I don't know why. Maybe it's just nerves. | |
It's exactly the kind of philosophy that I wish more dev teams had--quality and integrity, not quality and price. We all know what it will be, and we know how awesome we want, no we Need it to be, and demanding it now is like asking a Specialty Master Baker to bake you a cake, and when he tells you that it will take a whole day to perfect, you demand that he finish it in three hours. Sure, he could do that--but why argue with the guy you're putting your faith and respect into because he knows what he's doing and you, who've never made a cake without burning it, demand to do it your way? It was different with DNF, because DNF looked like every other game around, and managed to be completely a waste of time. SCII, though, from the taste test that the baker has so kindly granted us, is already causing our mouths to 'gasm, and the icing and decorations haven't even been put on yet. (On a side note, I am convinced that "Duke Nukem Forever" is actually the codename for a secret Government project that took place over the last decade and change, and never was a game at all, hence why it looked like everything else.) | |
Two things stand out to me from reading this thread; First: You know there's something wrong when you start a thread "Hasn't been delayed again yet"... Second: Duke Nukem Forever, or DNF in short, is race term for Did Not Finish. Spooky. | |
I've enjoyed a lot of RTS games since the announcement of Starcraft 2. Dawn of War 2 was awesome. Anyway, what I was going to get at is that Blizzard is not trying to revolutionize the industry. They are not trying to compete with any of the other RTS games coming up like Command and Conquer 4 or SupCom 2 (which is coming out probably the same year), or the next Sins of a Solar Empire expansion. Blizzard is going to make a sequel to Starcraft, and that is what it will be. Single player will be a "Dawn of War 2" sequel for me. A new interesting campaign mode that has upgrades/unlockables like everything has nowadays (even Order of War, lol). It will be easier than the original, have yet another compelling story, and it will be wonderful for 2 weeks, tops. The multiplayer, well... :) It's going to be different than anything I currently play, and I hope it holds its own, but I get the feeling it won't be nearly as competitive as the first game, even though they're designing it to be. It will probably be ~War 3 style where 150 APM is more than enough to do anything (Not that this is a bad thing!), and mobile armies and jumping/climbing over terrain will probably be the brunt of most strategies. Of course it will get into WCG, PGT, WGT, iCCup (if that's still around?), GGL, ESL, NGL, whatever, just because it's "WHOMG, STARCRAFT 2" even if it's not balanced, good, interesting, skillful, if the packaged maps suck, etc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ All I mean is that it's going to be a huge financial success, but probably won't be remotely as personally satisfying as I hoped it would be. The more I see of the game, the worse it is, and the less impressed I am by it. Features I have come to expect from RTS games are things that they're bragging about: Multiple Building select, ranked online matches, recording/replaying demos, infinite unit select, etc. It seems that the game has features that Total Annihilation did BACK IN 1997, because those have become standards of the industry today. And that Starcraft has nothing interesting or special to make it stand out aside from its storyline and its fanbase. And if people just love a game because millions of others purchased it as well, then... Then I guess I just won't ever understand. By the way, if you ever play Starcraft Competitively and are interested in a few things, check out Team Liquid, who have also gotten plenty of time with the SC2 closed beta. I've been following this stuff and it just seems ridiculous, simply ridiculous, and I know Blizzard will change things and use their development band-aids, but when you have a baseline design that has problems like these, they might need to work their balance from the ground up (again). TL;DR: I don't care if it hasn't been delayed again, even if it comes out in 2010, it won't be good enough, if it comes out in 2011 it won't be good enough, if it came out today it wouldn't be good enough to bear the name Starcraft 2. | |
World of Starcraft: Release date: Why do you care? You'll be dead! I'd play it... | |
well its blizzard so you can rest assured it will be delayed at some point | |
I'm inclined to agree here. I am starting to think Blizzard is getting too attached to its precious game (yes, I said it), that they will probably overwork it to the point that a lot of people will be in for disappointment. I guess with the money that gets funnled in with WoW, and with the added resources of Vivendi, they can spend more money to fine tune it. Never mind the fact that one can put too much into a project. I expect if this game doesn't come out til the latter half of next year, I think we can kiss a lot of flexibility in the game away. I'm still planning on getting the first part with the Terran campaign, but Blizz, if the Terran campaign doesn't wow people, and if you really disappoint with B-net, don't get your hopes up on good sales with the other two chapters. | |
No LAN no SC2 for me. Anyone else noticing that gaming companies are getting a hella lot more money grubby these days? | |
Wait.. isn't "A press release by Blizzard Entertainment in which they do not delay a game" one of the signs of the apocalypse or something? | |
sad sad day. i want this game to come out sooo badly. | |
..Lets hope this doesn't become the new Duke Nukem Forever | |
Freudian slip to the extreme. It would only be creepier if StarCraft II had the sub-title, "Tassadar's Legend: Defying Rushes!" oO | |
darn i was gonna say it looks like "3D Realms syndrome" has claimed another title. | |
lol if it releases on time great, but i really wouldnt hold my breath. i mean D3 isnt coming for another 2 years T.T Blizzard needs to throw us non-WoW players a bone or two here and their man. As a Blizzard fan im literally starving here ._. | |
Future news for November 6th, 2009: StarCraft II has been delayed to the later portion of 2010. | |
In other news, a man hasn't been decapitated by a shark-mounted-laser and Frederik Miller didn't have sex with Jack Thompson after a wild night of wii fit. | |
I think Blizzard is afraid to release SC2. Since most WoW players are avid StarCraft fans, at least 10% of them anyway, and will probably be like me and stop playing WoW for 6 months to play this game. Hell, I might not go back to WoW until the next expansion. | |
I understand the skepticism - I was plenty skeptical when I saw the game at PAX a year ago - but ... for all that SC2 doesn't innovate in the genre, it felt right in a way I really can't describe when I got my hands on it at BlizzCon. Like, I recognize the innovation (and quality) in Company of Heroes or DoW2, but SC2 was pick-up-and-play friendly and had a smoothness to it that's really rare. Obviously they need to keep it still recognizably StarCraft - which is why they're not making huge changes other than the things you mentioned like multiple building select, etc. I read that TL thread a while back, and I'm not convinced, if only because Blizzard has some of the top SC2 players in the world playtesting the hell out of the game, and if TL can come up with a strategy like that it's hard to believe that the Koreans can't. Besides, that's what a beta is for, isn't it :P (Speaking of which, I'm fairly sure the actual closed beta hasn't started yet. It's still internal and special events) But yeah. I was pretty skeptical myself, but I came away from BlizzCon feeling like SC2 had easily been the highlight of the show, even with D3 and Cataclysm being totally awesome. It kept Keane and me going back to play a game whenever we had 30 minutes, and we're hardly RTS fanatics. | |
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StarCraft II Hasn't Been Delayed Again Yet
Good news from the Activision-Blizzard Q3 investor call: StarCraft II is still on track for the first half of 2010 ... for now.
During Activision-Blizzard's quarterly financial conference call with stockholders, Blizzard's big boss and founder Mike Morhaime said that the company's eagerly-anticipated StarCraft II was on schedule to meet the targeted release date of "sometime in the first half of next year," and had in fact not been delayed again.
Though development of the game is largely complete (or at least it felt that way when I kicked Keane Ng's ass and tried out the Terran campaign at BlizzCon), the development team has been using the delay due to the complexities of Battle.net 2.0 to refine the game's balance and to polish everything up. Morhaime also said that he believed the game would be a blockbuster hit, seeing as how the first StarCraft has sold over 11 million copies worldwide, but let's be honest here: If you didn't think SC2 would be wildly successful without having to be told that by the Blizzard overlord, then you need to get your head checked.
I'm sure SC2 will tear up the charts when it comes out. I'm less sure that it'll be out when they say it will be - after all, the game was "on track" for a 2009 release too, until Blizzard delayed it. Fool me once, Blizzard: I'll believe it when I'm playing the beta with my own two hands.
In other Blizzard news: There will be a significant update to World of Warcraft "within the next few weeks," adding new maps and dungeons. This is almost certainly Patch 3.3, which is in the public testing phase right now, and which will bring players face to face with the Lich King himself in Icecrown Citadel.
Morhaime also addressed the hot-button issue of the recently-announced WoW Pet Store, saying that while the company was open to the idea of selling items and goodies that would be for simple vanity's sake to enhance the player experience, Blizzard was adamant that it would never sell items for real-world money that would affect the in-game balance - which means no actual equipment.
"All value added services are not required, as they are optional only nor will they adversely impact the experience should customers decide not to participate or purchase them ... we also expect digital sales to increase in the future, and plan to take advantage of it."
Sounds fine to me. At least I know I'll be able to buy some more pets on the in-game store while I wait for StarCraft II to finally come out in 2011.
(VG247)
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