Gaming StarCraft 2 Interview

@willyolio

Say what you want to say, and I'll respect what you've got to say. I find it funny though, that we are focused so much on a single community. But what can you do, eh?

Even if they are "elitist" and "idiots", at the end of the day, they are trying to make a game better - and is that not a respectable reason?

The fact is that what they are doing is no different than a protest in real life.
The Amazon thing was put there because most of the players there have pre-ordered the game through there (to support the website). By paying for the game that turns them into paying customers of Blizzard, instead of turning around and letting Blizzard have their way, they are protesting. That's it, plain and simple.

An act of protest is childish, but at the end of the day what does it cause?
It causes changes and its unfortunate that ruckus is what garners attention and causes reform.

A slice TL is just protesting, see it as you want - childish, elitist, idiotic.

(If you peruse the site you will see the other side of the argument; a more level-headed side - there is no need to generalize and make it seem like you have a vendetta against the site)

 

"An act of protest is childish"

Yeah martin luther king and ghandi needed togrow up! walking to washington and non violently resisting... infants!

oh, you meant only for games er wha?

 

badmouthing is childish. 1-star Amazon ranking is badmouthing, not protesting. protesting (properly), like e-mailing blizzard, talk to professional game reviewers and sites to tell them about your concerns and they'll probably bring it up in interviews (c'mon, game sites need to cater to their audiences), posting your concerns in a public forum (or blizzard/b.net forums), etc. a call-to-arms to badmouth a company is just stupid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-r_uCaFxg8

Husky is a Team Liquid member, and he manages to explain it in a much more level-headed manner than, well, the forum as a whole.

 

Regardless of, well, anything, Starcraft 2 will be huge. At least when it launches. I don' t know if it will endure though. I mean audiences aren't what they were when the original came out. The first Starcraft was a pretty much state of the art wargame in many respects, the new one, compared to the likes of Forged Alliance, Dawn of War 2 or Men of War, feels really primitive. Chess is primitive, football is primitive, and both are brilliant, but does primitive really cut it with a modern game? Well we'll see.

 

starcraft has a style of gameplay that few other RTSes emulate. the short explanation is that the player is responsible for everything- there is almost no luck involved in SC1, and SC2 there's absolutely none. at lower skill levels, things that are considered "lucky hits" or whatnot can be completely controlled at higher skill levels. the overall game strategy (macro) is just as important as the individual battles and skirmishes (micro) and either one can turn the tide of a game in the hands of a skilled player.

you can call it "primitive", but most new RTS features have been taking away what lies at the center of starcraft's identity- player control/responsibility... more automation, larger battles with more units (less importance of individual units and skirmishes), etc.

this all sounds like minutiae to people who don't play many RTSes... it's like explaining the difference between western chess and chinese chess and shogi. from the outside, it looks like you've just swapped some pieces and maybe threw in a few extra rules. for actual players, it's a huge difference.

with all that said- i'm pretty sure the in-game feature set will not make or break the game. it's the new B.net that will be a huge blow to what helped starcraft maintain its popularity: competition. the segregated realms and lack of LAN will make true competitive gaming, like in gaming leagues and international tournaments, nearly impossible. it appeals far too much to the "casual gamer" who only logs on to play a few games a week, and really steps on the biggest fans of SC2, the ones who are likely to log in every day after school with their friends and such.

 

its funny how i was once part of the big hoo-ha with no LAN (coming from original SC competitor from south-east asia), but once I look at the big picture..... seriously, it's ok.

ive never seen any net cafe that doesnt have internet (lol), and i cant imagine carrying some lanbox to any of my buddy's house to enjoy some LAN with beers and he/she doesnt have internet.

everybody's wired (or wireless) now, so not even lag is an issue.



that's all.


well, plus, that being said, im still pissed off how they split it to 3 games. probably the biggest reason why i wont buy it. simply cant afford it.

 

it does affect professional tournaments, though. take a look at the HDH- it was a small-scale Starcraft 2 tournament. they went through 2 patches during the tournament, and it only involved 16 players. there's tons of larger tourneys out there, like 64-player matches that take much more time, and if B.net goes down for maintenance, that's a huge disruption. you have to remember that in Korea, this is as big as any national athletic sport in western countries. Imagine if FIFA suddenly had to pause in the middle of the World Cup just because they had no control over when the field-maintenance crew decided to mow the grass.

the "3 games" issue was never a big thing to me. as long as they price it accordingly (they have always said they were expansion packs, not standalone games), it's pretty standard. Blizzard has made an expansion pack for every game since warcraft 2. this time we have 2 expansion packs, no big deal.

 

meh, i liked starcraft, all the warcraft games were legit, im playing the beta and it seems on par compared to the first one.

no lan support is real stupid. i wouldnt use it all the time but its nice to have that option, that seems like something they could have appeased everyone on.

in regards to three seperate expansions, i would rather have that then 10 random $5.00 DLC packs that are unimpressive (cough bioware cough).

its blizzard, how often do they biff a game?

 

Its very silly to accuse Blizzard of trying to milk the franchise with the 3 separate games, because all their previous games only had 1 expansion each, when it was patently obvious that another expansion for SC/D2/WC3 would have sold millions apiece. But they held off.

 

Ever played Dawn of War II? There's a good example of how a decent game can be hugely affected by lag (and bad computers which can't run the game decently).

Hell, ever played SC1 still? Every now and then there'll be a player who you could swear is on 56K and will ruin a game.

 

I loved that line about, well the game could be perfectly balanced and some people would still complain about balancing issues...aint that the truth my friends??

 

Not long now! Got my sleeping bag for the great camp out.