Blizzard's StarCraft II Delayed Big Time

[dannyaa]

I don't have a problem with the delay, simply because Blizzard has a literally flawless track record with every single game.

The pressure on StarCraft II is enormous because it is not just a real-time strategy game, it is more of an E-Sport for a huge part of the fanbase, and that is their goal for the rest of the fanbase in the west (to turn it into an e-sport).

Thus, there is an immense amount of pressure on fine-tuning and honing the multiplayer balance to a "t" so it is absolutely perfect and can stand up to the incredible scrutinization and exploitation of even the slightest imbalance.

The complexity of the new Battle.net to house millions of players, playing ALL the time, with complex match making, stat tracking, replays, observing modes, leagues, ladders, etc. - worldwide - requires undoubtedly a TON of development time. And the server load will likely be second only to WoW - meaning the 2nd largest server load of any game in the world.

As for a 10 year development time, that is only partially true. They didn't really start ramping the team up more until 2003 and they didn't start major development until around 05-06.

Personally I support the lack of LAN play. It is the easiest for people to pirate the game and I see it as an anti-piracy measure. Anyone who would actually play LAN is a hardcore gamer; is there ANY hardcore gamer without a net connection? And as for tournament and LAN parties, internet access is easy there, too. Internet is ubiquitous - to include LAN play is only a huge open door for piracy. Plus you'd lose all the stat tracking and features of bnet.

 

[p00dl3_h3r0]

[citation][nom]Kithzaru[/nom]...and then like... World of Starcraft..[/citation]


Sadly, I have an eerie feeling this may be the case. If I know Activision, then they'll milk a concept until its either dry or dead. I imagine the pitch going something like...

"Wait, didn't turning Warcraft into an MMO work before? Well, since we need to find something else to milk players on a monthly basis, lets milk the only other successful flagship RTS franchise until the mere mention of its name makes people either laugh in joy or mockery, and destroy whatever glimmer former gamers had of it ever coming back to the RTS scene, EVER AGAIN. It worked before didn't it?"

 

[n3ard3ath]

[citation][nom]kato128[/nom]I'm not happy with the delay either. But you can't rush perfection. Don't believe me? Try and think of the last crap game Blizzard ever released.[/citatation]

Yeah, you are right...Oh wait, WoW is. Then I guess you are wrong, sorry.

 

[scryer_360]

Its one thing when a mediocre game franchise like Duken Nukem takes (pun intended) "Forever" to complete, but Starcraft is one of the greatest games of all time. Really, if you were to list the ten greatest icons of entertainment in recorded history, and rank them by their cultural influence, Starcraft makes the list.

Let them take as much time as they need. Blizzard should be crafting a masterpiece with this, and if they need some extra months, take them.

 

[kingssman]

hmm.... so it took like what 10 years for this sequel... This isn't world of Starcraft, this is starcraft2. If Command and Conquer was able to come out with it's killer sequel, i wonder whats taking blizz so long. Oh well, it's not like they are hurting for cash with their 3 million subscribers at $15 a pop. Understaffed? maybe with everyone working on WOTLK expansion content, But if games like this wait too long, then it's just dust and dirt by the time it comes out. Spore anyone? (now granted that was redefining game genre,) Sims3? (not late but was just the regular sims but with better graphics, it did ok in sales) Halo? (that franchise had its act together on sequels and expansions)

 

[kato128]

[citation][nom]n3ard3ath[/nom][citation][nom]kato128[/nom]I'm not happy with the delay either. But you can't rush perfection. Don't believe me? Try and think of the last crap game Blizzard ever released.[/citatation]Yeah, you are right...Oh wait, WoW is. Then I guess you are wrong, sorry.[/citation]

Actually WOW is a good game. Granted you and I don't like it, but you don't get millions of users (or get called more addictive than cocaine) by being crap.

As for dannyaa I completely disagree with you. IMHO stat tracking is the biggest load of crap brought into multiplayer gaming these days and is not a compelling reason to scrap lan play or to require an internet connection to play. Additionally it's removal will hinder its growth as your touted "e-sport". Internet is not ubiquitous and where it is avaiable the bandwidth problems of running 5+ machines over a single 1.5mbit connection (about the fastest we can get here in Aus unless you live inside a telco exchange) would kill the experience. I don't want to play a laggy unplayable game with my mates and if that's the only option sc2 gives me then I'll just buy something else...

 

[dannyaa]

kato, 1.5mbps is more than enough to hook 10 computers up to with a lag-free experience. 8 player games in 1998 on good 56k connections weren't even BAD... 1.5mbps blows doors on that and would be perfectly smooth, especially 10 years later with much better netcode.

As for stat tracking, that was merely a side note of my point on removing LAN play - obviously it is primarily as an anti-piracy feature, and as far being an e-sport, it will not kill or hinder it. Sure they are done on LAN now, but contract players in Korea get $200k+/yr to play in arenas and tourneys. And you really think they won't just pay to have these places wired with an internet connection (which is not even that expensive)? Yeah... right.

The internet is not yet ubiquitous, but IS rapidly growing more ubiquitous. You can disagree with these points all day, but the staff at Blizzard obviously agrees with me and they aren't dummies.

On a different note, as for stat tracking, that's a valid opinion you have, but on the flip side I personally absolutely LOVE stat tracking and to me it makes the experience more engrossing. Stat tracking is also part of every single "real" sport on the planet... if that ruins the experience for you that is a valid opinion but it also that of a small minority, and with good reason.

 

[n3ard3ath]

[citation][nom]kato128[/nom]Actually WOW is a good game. Granted you and I don't like it, but you don't get millions of users (or get called more addictive than cocaine) by being crap.As for dannyaa I completely disagree with you. IMHO stat tracking is the biggest load of crap brought into multiplayer gaming these days and is not a compelling reason to scrap lan play or to require an internet connection to play. Additionally it's removal will hinder its growth as your touted "e-sport". Internet is not ubiquitous and where it is avaiable the bandwidth problems of running 5+ machines over a single 1.5mbit connection (about the fastest we can get here in Aus unless you live inside a telco exchange) would kill the experience. I don't want to play a laggy unplayable game with my mates and if that's the only option sc2 gives me then I'll just buy something else...[/citation]

Yeah, I see your point. But take McDonald's food for example. It's popular. It tastes good. But it's still crap.

 

[kato128]

10 players over 1.5mbit eh? So they're all a bit above dialup? you can barely load web sites with that let alone game with no lag. Potential players will be turned off by this and isn't the important thing for a e-sport to be inclusive? How can you grow a sport when only sponsored players living in specific areas can play?

Your anti-piracy argument doesn't hold water. No one ever pirated a game simply because it included lan mode, they did it because they liked the game. Look at NFS underground, it had no lan play and had to go thru EA's servers. People still pirated it and hacked it for LAN. In fact I'd wager this will encourage piracy judging from all the people saying no lan, no buy. The pirate version might even be hacked to run a private bnet server to allow lan play.

As for stat tracking it only ruins my experience when it's intrusive (eg requiring online presence at all times). Sometimes I want to have my pc off the net and still play a game.
Otherwise I could care less whether it's there or not.

 

[bildo123]

I don't have a problem with the delay, simply because Blizzard has a literally flawless track record with every single game.

The pressure on StarCraft II is enormous because it is not just a real-time strategy game, it is more of an E-Sport for a huge part of the fanbase, and that is their goal for the rest of the fanbase in the west (to turn it into an e-sport).

Thus, there is an immense amount of pressure on fine-tuning and honing the multiplayer balance to a "t" so it is absolutely perfect and can stand up to the incredible scrutinization and exploitation of even the slightest imbalance.

The complexity of the new Battle.net to house millions of players, playing ALL the time, with complex match making, stat tracking, replays, observing modes, leagues, ladders, etc. - worldwide - requires undoubtedly a TON of development time. And the server load will likely be second only to WoW - meaning the 2nd largest server load of any game in the world.

As for a 10 year development time, that is only partially true. They didn't really start ramping the team up more until 2003 and they didn't start major development until around 05-06.

Personally I support the lack of LAN play. It is the easiest for people to pirate the game and I see it as an anti-piracy measure. Anyone who would actually play LAN is a hardcore gamer; is there ANY hardcore gamer without a net connection? And as for tournament and LAN parties, internet access is easy there, too. Internet is ubiquitous - to include LAN play is only a huge open door for piracy. Plus you'd lose all the stat tracking and features of bnet.

This post doesn't belong here, it makes WAY too much sense, too much for half these "were going to bring a multi-million dollar company down because 1000 of us won't buy their game because of no LAN" people can't cope with the amount of logic being displayed here. Another thing I don't get is all these people threating that they are going to pirate it...You (they) did not honostly think the game was going to get pirated anyways? Really? Sorry but no revolution is going to happen. It's gonna be like any other day. Get over it.

BTW, on a serious note, good post.

 

[eyemaster]

[citation][nom]erichlund[/nom]Perhaps I'm not reading correctly, but isn't the first half of 2010 the period from January through June? A release in March would be, in my book, the first half of 2010. July 1 would fall under second half of 2010, if just barely.[/citation]

Not in business talk. For a business, it just means they will announce the release in the first half and the release will be after June.

 

[Guest]

I really don't get why you guys are still talking about piracy. Seriously, do you think people who pirate will actually PAY for these stuff even if you remove LAN support? Come on, that's total bull. Some times, it actually has an opposite effect especially on us Asian here. I was planning to purchase it genuinely. But now that I have to PAY for THREE installments and no LAN? With the kind of "quality" internet we have here, sorry man. Money is tight here. Our currency doesn't allow us to just skip meal for a month to buy a game. Think about it. That removal of LAN feature just made me gave up on buying SC2.

But seriously, if it already worked on the Internet, it works on the LAN too. Just that they disabled the possibility. It doesn't take a genius to add that in within a week. Hence, delay has nothing to do with LAN. End of story.

 

[Guest]

No clue what all the rage over no lan support is. I've never once played the original game over LAN. I played it a lot back in the day and even now I pick it up from time to time and have always used battlenet. This reeks of mob-mentality generic angst just for the sake of complaining about something.

Long live battlenet, it lets me play the game with old friends who have moved away and I rarely get to see in real life.

 

[compulsionnra]

No one has cared about this game for 5 years anyways. It just looks like they recycled starcraft's system and made it purty.

 

[bildo123]

No one has cared about this game for 5 years anyways. It just looks like they recycled starcraft's system and made it purty.

For the most part, your right. There were some several units added to each side but beyond a new story, maps and fancy textures your still playing pretty much the same exact game.

 

[maxpickel]

"they are being sensible in saying first half of 2010 so that they dont have to publicly humiliate themselves again by delaying it once again..."

That's nice sentiment, but isn't this more like Blizzard got drunk took their pants off and is humiliated, but is still too drunk to realize that saying they won't take off their underwear doesn't make this less humiliating?