Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[KvP]

Read it, bitches!

Blizzard drops bombshell and says real-time strategy sequel is now three separate games.

ANAHEIM--Blizzard dropped a bombshell at the 2008 Blizzcon today by announcing that StarCraft II, the highly-awaited sequel to the smash hit 1998 real-time strategy game, StarCraft II, has been split into three. The company said that StarCraft II now consists of three different stand-alone titles--one for each faction campaign. The first of the StarCraft II trilogy will be StarCraft II Terrans: Wings of Liberty. The second will be StarCraft II Zerg: Heart of the Swarm, with the third and final installment of the main trilogy being StarCraft II Protoss: Legacy of the Void.

Blizzard says it made the change to make each story that much more epic and to flesh out the StarCraft universe. By splitting the game, the company says that players will access more story content, more characters, and more customization. Rob Pardo, executive vice president of game design, said that each game will be approximate in size to the original StarCraft. Each game will be a stand-alone installment – not an expansion. No release window was announced, but the only thing we can be sure of is that these games will ship, as Blizzard likes to say, when they're ready.

Well, I'll probably only be getting the Zerg one, then. Eff this noize.

[David_Dovey]

Blizzard says it made the change to make each story that much more epic and to fleHUGLBLAGSH lots of money

[Storm Rider]

I guess Blizzard got so used to making obscene amounts of money off WoW they decided to get Starcraft fans to bend over too. The only thing that saddens me more than them charging 150 fucking dollars for this game is how many people will pay that amount.

Not to be melodramatic about it, but I'm pretty much washing my hands of Blizzard entirely at this point. 95% of my gaming is done on consoles at this point, and my interest in Starcraft 2 was peripheral at best since I'm not a huge RTS fan, but this has just torpedoed any enthusiasm I had left at all about both this game and Blizzard's business practices in general.

[KvP]

In this case, given the general slack-jawed nature of battle.net I'm going to get the games... second hand, for the single player campaigns, which I don't expect to be any good. The last good product Blizzard produced was the original Starcraft, and from the looks of it the sequel is going to be chock full of the same ruinous wank that Warcraft 3 introduced. Micromanagement of single unit abilities in real time just isn't all that enjoyable.

No studio's worth that sort of blatant through-the-nose fleecing. Not anybody, certainly not Blizzard.

[Ikrik]

I wonder how the Koreans are going to react.

Why yes, three games is a WONDERFUL idea, didn't you guys love how LoTR is 3 movies instead of just one 12-hour one?  I know I did.  It's certainly much more epic this way.

In all seriousness this sounds like a giant load of wank. There is absolutely no reason why this could not be one game (obviously).  I like the fact that people will be able to pick up the race they enjoy playing with most (mine would be Protoss) but I have a sickening feeling that they'll be charging full price for each installment.

I wonder what's in the future for Diablo III

[satsugaikaze]

The idea for Diablo III brings up bad ideas of having a separate game for every class of hero/heroine T__T

This news has made me a little annoyed. Starcraft was the one franchise I was hoping Blizzard was never going to turn into a money-whoring series unlike Warcrack, but I guess I was a bit too naive. Hell, the original game was only around a few hundred megabytes tops. You could basically put all three on one DVD. I wish I could believe their reasons for doing this if it were true, but I just can't believe what they say anymore because of what they've done to the Warcraft franchise.

I just hope in the distant future they release a lame Battlechest of every Starcraft game, and I'll wait to get that. I'd rather spend around $100 AUD for one box instead of $200 for three.

I'm reserving my final judgement until the games are released, but the single-player campaigns are going to have to be REALLY the most fleshed out epic in RTS history to get my thumbs up, not some superficial shitty lame storyline development like Warcraft III. The original game had a great story; to ruin it would be one of the worst moments in gaming history.

[clockworkjames]

In most cases all RTS games, do this though.

Dawn of war did it and it was pretty damn awesome, now you can pick them all up (Dawn of War - The Complete Collection) for 20GBP.

It's not that bad a thing.

This is QC not QQ.

[Dimmukane]

I wonder how much of this decision was influenced by Activision, if at all...

[ackblom12]

Dawn of War had expansions to an already finished product, I'd say that was quite different than breaking your one game into 3 separate products.

It was stupid when Disciples II did it and it's stupid now.

[Chesire Cat]

Yet it was good when Sam and Max, Penny Arcade and Serious Sam did it for instance.  And if you get 20-40hrs of single player content off each then suck it up.  I mean its stating that single player campaigns will be race specific but do we know if multiplayer on any/all of them will feature the races of every/all of them.  And WoW isnt a money whoring concept game, its an incredibly tight ever expanding game that is so far removed from what it was when it was released that I dont see how in good conscience or at least realistically be flaming Blizzard for. 

I for one am optimistic, Blizzards only dick over consumer flaw that Ive seen so far has been Battle.net, its haflway all inclusive Xbox live like service, half Gamespy free range connection service.  And I will withhold judgement on Starcraft II until its released.  After all Blizzard didnt need Activision, and I doubt it has incredible sway in the realm of Blizzard games.

[Catfish_Man]

Hell, the original game was only around a few hundred megabytes tops. You could basically put all three on one DVD.

Wait... are you attempting to argue that each SC2 game will only be a few hundred megs? They're talking about amount of content, not megabytes on disk.

[Dimmukane]

Yeah, I'm a little confused by that statement.  I can see all the Warcrafts being on DVD (not WoW), and Diablo's plus Starcraft and expansions on another, but certainly not Starcraft 2.  All 3 would take at least 2, just judging from the art I've seen in the screenshots.

[MusicScribbles]

Guys, this will just be the single player aspect of the game that is split obviously.
Not just that, but the three parts will be treated less like separate games and more like expansion packs. The Terran campaign will come with the full game, while the Zerg and Protoss campaigns will both be released as expansion campaigns more in the line of Frozen Throne, so there will be huge campaigns. From reading about what they have in-store for the Terran campaign, what with controlling Raynor as you walk him around his ship and all, I think that this could potentially, in the end, create a more awesome game.
I know my optimism is extant, don't criticize me Brian. I just love Starcraft too much for negativity, until it comes out.

[snalin]

This is definitely a case of download first buy later. If the campaigns is as awesome as the ones in Starcraft 1, this is a buy. But still, the game has to be really fucking fun for me to play all of the races. I mean, if all of them are as long as the traditional RTS. But the game play is supposed to be set up in other ways for the races, so maybe. I'm looking forward to this.

[Boro_Bandito]

Yeah, after reading the whole article it doesn't really seem like such a bad idea. I really liked the original starcraft campaigns and wish they'd been longer than they were. Now, with over 30 missions for each race it sounds like it could be pretty fuckin' sweet. And anyway, the multiplayer is all intact so right out of the first box you'll be able to play all 3 races online, which is an important reminder. And then the other expansion packs, which is what I'm going to call them even though you can play the campaigns stand-alone, will have extra units and stuff for multiplayer, or that's what they made it sound like. And since they aren't all going to be released at once, in fact it says a year apart at least, its not like you'd be shelling out 150 bucks all at once, if the other two even cost the same price as the first one.

[imagist42]

Each game won't add new units to the multiplayer. The idea was that each campaign would have feautres (such as additional units) that aren't included in the multiplayer content that comes standard with every one of them.

I said something about what this means for the development cycle on another forum so I'll quote it here:

I think an important thing to note here is that they didn't initially plan to do the game this way, but in development their ideas grew so "epic" (for lack of a better word) that they felt the only way to do the campaigns properly was to split them up. This is not dissimilar from Valve splitting "Half-Life 3" (or what was supposed to be Half-Life 3) into episodic content; the idea is to keep giving the fans something to do, without having to wait for such games' (not to mention Blizzard's) traditionally long development cycles to complete before releasing anything for the game. As one of those articles quoted them saying, it was either do this so that they could keep their promises to release "Starcraft 2" (or at least part of it) in 2009, let the game spend years in development hell, or release a significantly truncated version that wouldn't do the game (or the long wait for it) justice.

That said, we will see if the products they release actually do justify this move, not to mention whatever price point they decide to release it at. At least you can reasonably hope they won't pull a Valve and only release each campaign as a bundle with previous campaigns and other miscellaneous software.

Also note that Blizzard typically spends a lot of development time on its cutscenes, both cinematic and automated in-game stuff, so I kind of don't mind letting them spend time on adding a whole lot of those goodies into each campaign (as they claimed they were doing in one of the articles I read).

[Alex C]

This is definitely a case of download first buy later.

Provided you're a douchebag, of course. I'm waiting 'till more info is available to pass judgement.

[Melodic]

This is not dissimilar from Valve splitting "Half-Life 3" (or what was supposed to be Half-Life 3) into episodic content

Definitely was meant to be episodic from the beginning.

Also, I don't see what Blizzard is doing as any more epic than any other expansion-oriented gaming series ever. They've just managed to replace "we're making expansions, woo!" with "the game is so epic we're spreading it across three whole games!" in the announcement. Classy.

[Jackie Blue]

I think this is a good thing, because I only play RTS games for the campaign modes, and hopefully this means each campaign will be truly epic.

[Thaes]

The same here. If they can truly make each of those campaigns as epic as they were in the original Starcraft, I become strangely deaf towards the whining of my wallet.

[Jackie Blue]

Not to mention, the "wallet-raping" aspect is not much of an argument if you look at, say, what EA has done with Rock Band.  You have to literally spend about $1000 to have Rock Band 2 and all the songs that have been released for 1 and 2.

I mean, buying an album for Rock Band costs more than buying the actual album.  What the fuck.

[Chesire Cat]

It comes with a method to actually play the songs as opposed to actually listen to them.  Rockband has great value for the buck and add in DLC to extend the value.  EVERYONES getting paid for every song they put out, Rockband has found a way to make it economically viable and still give the consumer the added ability to get more tracks if they want them.

[Storm Rider]

Not to mention, the "wallet-raping" aspect is not much of an argument if you look at, say, what EA has done with Rock Band.  You have to literally spend about $1000 to have Rock Band 2 and all the songs that have been released for 1 and 2.

I mean, buying an album for Rock Band costs more than buying the actual album.  What the fuck.

That's because plotting out the note charts for a song takes a lot more time and effort than you think. There's developer diaries out there somewhere for that shit, it's pretty in depth. Not to mention the licensing fees.

[KvP]

The great majority of the cost of actually getting to play Rock Band goes to hardware, and games with extensive and pricey DLC are a different sort of animal entirely. You can easily play Rock Band without DLC, and if we factor in hardware costs, depending upon the system requirements of Starcraft there are people who could handily be spending more money on Starcraft than they would on Rock Band. I guarantee you that there will be far more people who will buy new hardware for Starcraft 2 than will have bought all the peripherals for Rock Band, and a decent video card plus all three games will definitely overtake the cost for a full Rock Band set, minus DLC.

And given the power and influence of Blizzard at present time, I doubt that including all campaigns in one package would be to the detriment of them individually. They could easily afford to work on all three at once and make good deadlines. Spend, what, 2 months profit from WoW on Starcraft 2 and voila. There's no "signature touch" that would be lost in a gargantuan effort like that.

[Storm Rider]

Yeah, it's a pretty blatant cash grab. If you guys think that these are going to be priced like expansion packs, you're also fooling yourselves. They're going to charge the full 50 for all three games, because they can get away with it.

[Alex C]

If it's a good enough product, I really don't give a crap. My brother loved playing through the original Starcraft campaign. He did this last week, by the way, for what seems like the billionth time over the last decade.

[Surgoshan]

Would you say it's a blatant cash grab for an author to charge full list price for each of the books in a trilogy?

It's only a blatant cash grab if Blizzard releases two subsidiary, less fully formed campaigns.

[KvP]

I wouldn't have called it a cash grab had Starcraft 1 been three separate games as well. I don't buy Blizzard's reasonings. I don't buy that this format is the best way for them to make their games. No matter how they release them the full product is going to hit the market at roughly the same time (theoretically, if they worked on all the campaigns at the same time as they have done in the past, then Q&A and other concerns will require significantly less time, and that's not even getting into the teams "winding up" and "winding down" before and after every release)  Given that I doubt the separation of the campaigns will change much with regard to the actual content of the games themselves, all we're really left with as far as motivation is the tripling of already guaranteed-staggering revenues. After all, nobody's arguing that what Activision/Blizzard's doing with Guitar Hero isn't a blatant milking of the property.

I'm not saying people shouldn't spend $150 on a game, I'm saying that they should take off the fuckin' rose colored glasses. This is a decision made for shareholders, not consumers.

[Alex C]

...So?

[Chesire Cat]

Im definitely argueing that what Activision/Blizzard are NOT blatantly milking the property.

And with a track record of quality/content vs price Blizzard has always served up, I am reserving judgment and am quite optimistic that Blizzard can perform.

[satsugaikaze]

If we follow Starcraft 2 and make Diablo III the same way, we can make a separate game for every character-specific race and gender! =D

[KvP]

DUN DUN DUNNNNNN

[Alex C]

I think it's hilarious how mad people are getting. Granted, I won't pay for battlenet unless they drastically change the very nature of the service, but hey, it's not like anyone's forcing me to buy it.

[ackblom12]

Also, Cheshire, I think Bryan got the point a little better when he mentioned these aren't going to be priced like episodic content or expansions. These are likely going to be full priced games. It will either end up being $55 for the core and then $30 apiece for the 2nd and 3rd campaigns, or the full $50 - $55 apiece, which is absolute bullshit in every respect.

I hope that at the very least you can play all the races without the other campaigns in multi.

Also, B.Net being monetized is also a bit bullshit when they've proven over the last 10 years that they can run it without any problems free.

[Alex C]

I don't really think that's a valid point. I could afford to give everyone on my block a free peanut butter sandwich every day but that doesn't mean that people have the right to expect me to continue to do so forever. That said, I think charging for it in its present form won't fly very well, considering that it is essentially a peer-to-peer matching service with a dollop of advertising on top. Quite simply, they want me to pay for something I don't particularly need and can provide for myself.

[ackblom12]

Exactly, those Peanut Butter sandwiches are delicious, this is the equivalent of giving out shit sandwiches for free adn charging extra for "special sauce".

[Chesire Cat]

Also, Cheshire, I think Bryan got the point a little better when he mentioned these aren't going to be priced like episodic content or expansions. These are likely going to be full priced games. It will either end up being $55 for the core and then $30 apiece for the 2nd and 3rd campaigns, or the full $50 - $55 apiece, which is absolute bullshit in every respect.

Well assuming that they all share the same multiplayer component (since they are all stand alones).  If you get 20-40hrs of single player content expect to pay the full $50-$55 apiece.  It allows them to have longer more involved and fleshed out content for each specific race.  I can repeat everything Blizzard said back at you but bottom line is.  If you get a full games worth of content, then get used to the idea of paying a full games worth of money.  Just because they wont have to write a new engine for ever game, or redo multiplayer, doesnt mean it takes an epic amount of man hours to create and QA that much single player content.

It remains to be seen how involves the single player campains are, but Ill say it again, if you get a full single player experience (Ive been using 20-40hrs as the model) then expect to pay $50-$55.  And Blizzard has a pristine track record, and more industry clout then any company out there.  I, without being a fanboy about it, am fairly certain that Blizzard will do right by its customers.  Its well and cool and all to get all self righteous about you getting screwed over... wait no, its exactly not well or cool to do that.  If you are uncertain, suck it up til the games or at least reviews come out to judge.  A company that has never done the things you are accusing it of, and has put out quality products should expect a little more loyalty or understanding from its customer.

[Surgoshan]

Blizzard has a pristine track record

This is what I focus on.

Activision has produced a lot of shlock.  Nintendo is milking its properties.  Blizzard has, so far, produced nothing but quality.  Just like Valve.


I'm willing to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt until the products are actually out there.

[cough]Han shot first, and Joss Whedon is my master now.[/cough]

[ackblom12]

Never done what? Milked a franchise? Sure...

I am saying that what Blizzard is doing here is fucking stupid and is definitely milking the franchise. Releasing 1 product as 3 separate products is what I would call milking it.

I can guarantee that if EA released RA3 with every campaign having to be bought separately, no matter how well fleshed out they were, no one would be in support of it in anyway whatsoever.

Activision has produced a lot of shlock.

Obviously Blizzard is a big enough entity that this doesn't necessarily mean it will rub off, but you do realize that Activision and Blizzard are merged right?

This is also practically the Anti-Valve when you take value into consideration. Unless you call 1 for 3 as good of a value as 5 for 1.

[KvP]

Blizzard has, so far, produced nothing but quality.

Warcraft Threeeeeeeee.

[satsugaikaze]

... hated Warcraft III. Villains were just superficial anti-heroes with the typical "fall from grace" story that came with the beginning of Star Wars.

My previous statement was based off the fact that they said each game would roughly be the same size as the original game. Which was only a few hundred Mbs.
Look, there are probably a multitude of reasons why they did this, but the one that would stand out to me was how they could obviously reap so much more money for this. It may or may not be the foremost reason, but it seems to be one of the obvious ones.

We all know that Blizzard can perform, and everyone knows how successful their games can be. We'll probably never dispute that. But the fact that they need to initially release it in three separate boxes is a silly idea. At most, why not just put three DVDs in one box? The fanbase could probably just wait rather than get a story WIP check with three separate releases. I guess it depends - on one hand, Blizzard could do a fantastic job of it (as it did with Starcraft), and make it one of the top storylines. The characters could be fleshed out properly, there's proper dramatic spice to it, they score the music in a proper way (hearing the previews, it's my thumbs up for the music), and the individual races truly deserve a place as a standalone product.
On the other hand, Blizzard could release campaigns that are... fairly good, Starcraft 1 standard; with lots of nice visuals and a decent story, but ultimately customers might be saying that it wasn't worth putting into three separate games. That's probably generally the options that may occur.

That said, I have more to say, but all I really want to say now is that I'd wait for a Battlechest if Blizzard don't deliver to their promises. Makes the ordeal that much easier.

[ackblom12]

Warcraft 3 was such a huge disappointment, but I seem to be in the minority with that opinion.

[Ozymandias]

Bryan, I have to point something out:

You've already bought into this same reasoning for a different franchise. Mass Effect.

So I'm of two minds. I don't like it. I like my money (and I can't possibly get these for free). I do think it's partially a cash grab, which is the right of the company, but is still bullshit.

But if each of these games is honestly a giant, full length campaign that justifies its price point...isn't that severely awesome?

[Chesire Cat]

And for all the 1 in 3 ideas that are getting put forth.  Would you prefer all three race campaigns were 1/3rd as long, to justify the price point and ship it all in a single box.  Or would you rather have 3 games, all released at once, all performing to Blizzards par?

And for the hating War3 got.  It might not have been the game alot of people were expecting, but it was well received and earned great reviews.

[Alex C]

I liked Warcraft III. I wasn't so thrilled with the graphics, but for the most part I found it very enjoyable. I liked it better than Warcraft II but not as much as Starcraft. Which, frankly, gives it something in common with the vast majority of great games.

[Storm Rider]

Blizzard has a pristine track record

This is what I focus on.

Activision has produced a lot of shlock.  Nintendo is milking its properties.  Blizzard has, so far, produced nothing but quality.  Just like Valve.


I'm willing to give Blizzard the benefit of the doubt until the products are actually out there.

What, and Blizzard hasn't milked it's properties? I don't know if you've noticed, but Blizzard has not made a non-sequel in an entire decade. That's a hell of a lot longer than Nintendo has.

And the Valve comparison is even less appropriate because this move is basically completely contrary to Valve's business model. Starcraft II is the anti-Orange Box, where they're splitting one game into 3 packages instead of 5 games (admittedly, some of which are smaller) into one. Valve responded to the huge sums of money they made off of Steam by rewarding their fans, not using that loyalty to give them the shaft that much harder. It's like you people have fucking Stockholm Syndrome or something.

And Ozy, Mass Effect isn't a valid comparison. There's a difference between planning a trilogy and splitting what was once going to be one game into three parts. Besides which, being that Mass Effect is a franchise, there will be new features, engine improvements, and so forth made between games (or at least there had better be, if not then that will suck and should deserve the criticism it would receive). These three Starcraft games will be the same game and use the same assets, just split up so they can release them on a schedule and squeeze money out of people.

[Ozymandias]

But it was always a trilogy of campaigns. The campaigns just got too ridiculously huge for one release.

Again, I don't know how much I trust this. I think it's very possible for the finished product to justify this decision and I don't think we have all the facts yet.

[Storm Rider]

So they say. I doubt it.

Remember, this game has been in development since 2004. While that does imply that the game ended up bigger than they originally intended, unless they release all 3 games at once or at least within a reasonable time frame (meaning not Valve's model of 18 months between episodes), it begs the question of what the fuck they've been doing with all that time unless they split these games up and spread them apart to get people to pay for them individually.

[imagist42]

This is not dissimilar from Valve splitting "Half-Life 3" (or what was supposed to be Half-Life 3) into episodic content

Definitely was meant to be episodic from the beginning.

No. No no no no no no no. Unless you think Gabe Newell has no idea what he's talking about regarding his own series:

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=65345&page=1

Guys, this comparison thing I've done is not saying that Starcraft 2 is like the Orange Box, it's saying that Blizzard is essentially doing with Starcraft 2 what Valve did with their originally planned sequel to Half-Life 2. The major difference is that Valve's Episodes are about half as long as the original game they are sequels to (if you read that Eurogamer interview, Newell mentions something about all three together being equivalent to a standalone sequel), so Valve packaged them with other products to justify al price; on the other hand, Blizzard is developing campaigns that are at least as long and full as the original game, and selling those separately (along with the multiplayer content in each box, which I guess is the "original Half-Life 2" of their Starcraft 2 packages). And I really don't care what you say, Bryan, until we get concrete details on price points for Starcraft 2, I'm not going to count them out yet.

Personally, I already owned Half-Life 2 and Episode 1, and had no interest in Team Fortress 2, when Valve forced me to buy all three of those games at the $50 price point just to get their two $20 value products (Episode 2 and Portal) at release, so I would not say that they were specifically "rewarding" their fans. When they cancelled the Black Box or whatever they were going to release alongside Orange Box, with just the new games included, I wasn't the only one a little upset at Valve giving out the "opportunity" for loyal fans to buy potential gifts for friends who didn't own the older games, just so we could play the new ones.

[ackblom12]

what?

You do realize both Episode 2 and Portal are $20 right? Not $10?