EPTAn Open Letter Regarding Starcraft 2’s Launch Date
Recommendation: Delay Starcraft 2 until Q4 2010 or Q1 2011
Author: Sturmlight, Videogame Industry Analyst and avid Starcraft player
Mr. Morhaime, Mr. Browder, and Mr. Kotick,
My name is Sturmlight on Battle.net and in the Starcraft 2 Beta. I am 27 years old with approximately 15 years of Blizzard gaming and 22 years of general gaming under my belt. I have also studied videogame business for at least 10 years. I have privately and publicly analyzed strategic decisions made by Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo via private discussion and gaming websites –all within the context of business strategy. Specifically, I examined the complex strategies involved in software and hardware development across the industry and have made many stock price calls on these strategies. On July 27th, you will attempt to launch the sequel to one of my favorite franchises of all time, a title for which I have waited for over 10 years: Starcraft 2. I am here to tell you to delay your game or it will adversely affect your game’s chances of success. Delay it 6 months or even for a year. “This kid’s crazy!” you’re probably saying. Yes, yes I am. But I also believe I’m quite right about this, and I’m here to tell you why.
Yes, there are a large variety of concerns that come with a decision regarding a game delay when it is made at a publicly traded company. These include:
1. Activision Blizzard stock price.
2. Realizing revenue from Starcraft 2 later than originally projected.
I am here as a businesss analyst and private stock trader of the videogame industry to address all these concerns and convince you they are irrelevant:
1. The majority of investors and shareholders have no idea what they’re talking about with regard to the videogame industry, they only want to profit from it. As such, the quality of an effort in the videogame space has nothing to do with their concerns over timing (I will prove this).
2. Would you rather realize less revenue than you originally expected sooner, or realize possibly up to 4.0x the revenue you originally expected later? Yeah, 4.0x right?
You think?
Why do I still believe you must delay your game? Here are the 2 reasons:
1.There is a massive and legitimate backlash against Battle.net 2.0 from the users who will most use it and Battle.net 2.0 represents the most important aspect of Starcraft 2 in order to give it longevity.
2. Starcraft 2 still does not cater to what I previously defined as the Casual Hardcore – those players who bridge the most pro players with the least pro players. I believe the Casual hardcore to remain unsatisfied by Starcraft 2 and that they may be the 2nd most important aspect that, I believe, contributed to the longevity of Starcraft 1.
First, I must attempt to prove to you that a delay is possible for Starcraft 2. After that, I will attach and briefly discuss in my addendum to this letter the two reasons why a delay is necessary.
Let’s address why you CAN delay Starcraft 2 and still succeed as a business entity. As are all publicly traded companies – you’re concerned about shareholders. But while shareholders have incentive to be concerned with your forward business plan, when it comes to videogame companies – they rarely are concerned enough to properly guide you.
How do I know this for a fact?
In 2006, a momentous event occurred in the console hardware industry wherein one competitor, with one businesss plan, unexpectedly seized control of 50% of console market share in households across the world. That company was Nintendo. Prior to the age of Wii, Sony enjoyed 60-80% market share with its Playstation 2 console. At the helm of Nintendo is a brilliant man by the name of Satoru Iwata. He has as his right hand man the creative genius Shigeru Miyamoto. Iwata’s business plan and business savvy coupled with Miyamoto’s creative smarts are what turned Nintendo from a fledgling entertainment company to a consumer mega giant in what seemed like an overnight period. The way they did this is exceedingly complex and will be studied for years, but Nintendo’s stock price shows that when it comes to actual decisions, shareholders are irrelevant and only provide incentive to make the right ones:
November 2001: Nintendo launches the GameCube system
Current Stock Price: ~$21
July 2003: It is evident that GameCube will generally fail in competition against the PS2
Current Stock Price: ~$10
September 2005: Nintendo shows the Wii Controller and Nunchuk at the Tokyo Game Show
Current Stock Price: ~$14 for the ADR in the U.S.
January 2006: Some savvy investors see the writing on the wall, stock price begins to rise.
Current Stock Price: ~$18
May 2006: Nintendo fully reveals the Wii and all its associated software at the E3 Expo.
Current Stock Price: ~$21
November 2006: Nintendo launches the Wii hardware. It is effectively sold out for 2 years afterwards because it has filled a need that investors did not know that consumers had. Nintendo’s stock price jumps to approximately $70 for most of 2007 and part of 2008, before returning to more reasonable levels. $70, from $14.
I ask you this Activision Blizzard: Did investors short term concerns and reactions drive this growth in stock price at Nintendo? Or did investors, instead, provide the incentive to very smart men, who, with their savvy, executed a strategy after much toil and tribulation which led to one of the biggest changes the console industry has seen since the arrival of the Playstation brand name? While one could argue the chicken or the egg, I believe that it was Iwata coupled with Miyamoto and the decisions that they made which caused Nintendo’s strategic position to change so quickly. That is, investors didn’t know shit about how to run Nintendo or what moves to make, they just knew that they wanted more profit than they were receiving. While they provided incentive, they did not properly control Nintendo in a way which led to the massive success it has realized since it launched the DS and the Wii. No, in fact, they gave no tangible direction whatsoever. Iwata and Miyamoto, and the other smart executives at Nintendo, channeled their passions for the business into decisions [at the incentive of shareholders] which were so far ahead of their time that they masterfully derailed two of the biggest companies on the planet (Microsoft and Sony) in their bid for domination of the consumer living room.
If investors had any idea what they were talking about with regards to the videogame industry, Nintendo’s current stock price would have been realized immediately in 2005 when the Wiimote was unveiled, or immediately in May 2006 when it garnered the most attention from the population in 2006. The reality is it took a year for investors to realize what Nintendo had done. And what Nintendo’s Iwata and Miyamoto had done DIRECTLY determined the value realized from its stock. No, investors did NOT determine a damn thing about the value that they realized out of the stock – they only ensured that the incentive was there for Nintendo to execute on its brilliant strategy. However, whether Nintendo executed was undetermined by investors: it was the people making the decisions (Iwata and Miyamoto and others) which caused Nintendo’s current legacy to come to fruition. Blizzard: Do not allow Starcraft 2 launch decisions to be made based upon shareholder concerns, but based upon your own concerns as sparked by shareholder incentives.
Let’s also talk about revenue realization within the context of the Nintendo example above because it fits perfectly, again, with the decision which you currently face. Nintendo has revealed via Miyamoto that they originally considered releasing the Wiimote controller as an add-on to the GameCube. However, the GameCube’s brand was already set in stone when they had decided to do this. Had they done so in order to bring the Wiimote to market earlier in an effort to rout competitors or realize revenue on schedule, they would have disastrously doomed their strategy to failure because they would have attached it to a brand which did not have the power to fly as high as the Wii brand did.
I guarantee you that the added billions and billions of revenue and the billions of dollars in profits Nintendo has realized from launching the Wii as its own device rather than launching it before its time as a Gamecube add-on were more than worth the delay.
While the decision to delay software is not directly analogous to Nintendo’s hardware decisions, I believe it holds some derivative weight. Who cares when revenue is realized if you realize $4 billion in additional revenue because you delayed a product (such as Starcraft 2) and addressed extremely important concerns to the base of consumers who were going to purchase that product?
Mr. Morhaime and Mr. Browder: YOU are the Iwatas and Miyamotos of Blizzard. It is YOU who will decide whether Starcraft 2 satiates the needs of its fan base in its current form as what some view as a Starcraft 1 “Add-on” (analogous to the GameCube Wiimote add on), or whether it should be delayed and polished and finished as its own Starcraft 2 entity (analogous to the Wii itself). You must not allow shareholders to affect the important decisions regarding the construction of such an important game as Starcraft 2. Therefore, you must not allow them to determine, in any way, when it is launched, how it is priced, or whether additional work is required to bring it up to snuff with the expectations of your fan base. I know that you inherently believe this to be true, but perhaps it is because of the complex corporate structure in which you find yourself (after the Activision Blizzard merger) that you doubt yourself in the important decisions you make?
What I am saying, Mr. Morhaime and Browder, and especially Mr. Kotick, is that if you make the right decisions regarding your games then the stock price will follow suit, and its interim price does not matter at all compared to those decisions. While Starcraft 2 will not determine as much as the Wii did in 2006, it will determine a large portion of Blizzard’s new revenue moving forward. As it is quality that fulfills a consumer’s needs (needs they may not know they have) and as it is quality that drives purchase intent and therefore shareholder value, quality is more important than timing in the absence of competition (and not many compete with Blizzard, even now). Therefore, any software release window is subject, on a smaller scale, to the Nintendo principle: Are you fulfilling the needs of the audience to which you are marketing and are you fulfilling those needs in a superior manner? If the answer is no, delay your game. We (your fans) and they (investors) will follow you if you make the right decisions.
I wish you all the best in the hard decisions that are laid before you. I hope you make the right ones, as they will determine the success of Starcraft 2 and whether I, my friends, and the rest of the world play your game for the next 10 years or shove it into the back corners of our gaming backlogs. If you read the writing on the wall for Starcraft 2 right now, the current answer may be the latter.
Very sincerely,
Sturmlight
ADDENDUM TO OPEN LETTER – 2 REASONS WHY BLIZZARD SHOULD DELAY STARCRAFT 2
Reason 1: Battle.net 2.0
I will not enunciate all the concerns elicited at Team Liquid or across the interwebs regarding Battle.net 2.0. Suffice it to say, the legitimate concerns of the web as they pertain to Battle.net 2.0 are the following:
- Lack of Chat Rooms in Battle.net 2.0
- Lack of LAN play
- Battle.net 2.0 structure which is focused on monetary concerns rather than game concerns, including:
a. Restrictions on the manner and quantity of map uploads
b. Possible subscription based service
c. Region locking servers so that players can’t play against each other across continents
d. Ease of game creation and usefulness of game titling in Battle.net 2.0
e. Lack of ways to build community buddy lists within Battle.net (as in – I don’t have access to the population of gamers playing Starcraft 2 in the current form of Battle.net! How am I supposed to build community with them!?)
All of these concerns are legitimatized by an increasingly worldwide and open atmosphere on the internet. I tend to agree with all the critics that Battle.net 2.0 does appear to contain many steps backwards in the realm of online gaming than the steps forward that Blizzard would like. These concerns REALLY need to get addressed before launch because if they aren’t, the first consumers of Battle.net might walk away and never return, destroying and derailing the longevity of Starcraft 2 and forcing it into irrelevance.
I will not comment further on this because there are so many writers out there, including this one
http://sclegacy.com/articles/730-battlenet-20-concerns
that have written their concerns regarding Battle.net 2.0 in more detail and amazing clarity than I ever could.
Reason 2: The Casual Hardcore and Starcraft 2’s failures in addressing this key audience
Note: This is a revised version of a piece I previously constructed and posted at GAF, Blizzard, and elsewhere. I have revised it because, due to the feedback I received and after having rethought a few things, I believe that only certain portions of my initial critique of Starcraft 2 were properly interpreted (and this was my fault due to the way in which I wrote the piece). With all this aside, here are my thoughts on the Casual Hardcore:
I am Sturmlight.Yeast on battle.net. I am not a pro Starcraft player nor do I intend to be [I believe pro-play takes a certain fun away from the core experience]. However, I AM what I would call a Casual Hardcore Starcraft player who will use all the tools at his disposal to NATURALLY win WITHOUT rushing. A natural win to me includes the development of buildings, units, and additional bases necessary to out-resource my opponent (in the end game, past 30 minutes of play) and to use my position to destroy all their buildings. A rush to me is unnatural, and it disturbs my perception of Starcraft. I say my perception because I recognize that to some [pros and those interested in pure games of competitive play], a rush is perfectly valid. But I believe my perception of Starcraft to be representative of a large group of players out there, and especially to be representative of the vast majority of NEW players out there. Thus, I am writing this document because I feel Blizzard will need to perform two important actions prior to or just after the release of Starcraft 2 in order to enhance the game for those with my appraisal of Starcraft 2:
1. Reassess Starcraft 2’s positioning with the Casual Hardcore.
2. Cater more to the Casual Hardcore.
Starcraft 2 is an absolutely excellent game. The complete package, even in its current form, is likely worth far more than the $100 collector’s edition price and will provide a LOT of hours of fun gameplay to many different populations of people. These populations include the Pro-Hardcore[inclined to pro play and rushing], the pure Casual [these are the people that will obsessively play the single player campaign and “use map settings” games from here until eternity], and the pure Hardcore [ those who do not have the skill to be pro yet play the game very seriously in order to improve themselves].
However, in their current form, the current Starcraft 2 races do not cater enough to another oft-forgotten population: the elusive Casual Hardcore players. While Blizzard has attempted to satiate the Casual Hardcore with anti-rush maps, I feel as though there are a variety of other actions that would function well to buttress their cause with such players. I will try my best to give voice to the Casual Hardcore with the following definition:
*Casual Hardcore
The Casual Hardcore players are defined, for the purposes of this appraisal, as those gamers who find games of Starcraft to be more entertaining than competitive. Specifically:
a.They are not casual in the sense that they will play a game for more than 20 minutes at a time. They are not hardcore in that they do not play a game purely for winning the game.
b.They represent a mix of the above two groups, and they are, I suspect, a large population of gamers. Casual Hardcore players play to win insofar as their skills carry them but will not focus intently on becoming perfect at the game. However, the Casual Hardcore also play the game to the limit of the game’s capacity [instead of just leaving it after getting simply a taste, as a casual player would do in most other games].
c.To this crowd, I believe, the best games of Starcraft are those that simmer for more than 30 minutes and then explode with conflict all over the place (and involve more players rather than less). These preferences exist because they generate an atmosphere in the game that feels more casual and less serious.
d.In an ideal Casual Hardcore Starcraft game, there are some skirmishes early in the game, but they are limited and do not determine the course of the game as much as they do in pro-hardcore games.
e.To the extent that a game contributes entertainment in lieu of purely competitive essence, the Casual Hardcore derive greater utility from the game.
f.If the Casual Hardcore achieve a certain level of utility from the game, they will keep returning over and over again to that game.
I believe every single person who plays games has a bit of Casual Hardcore within them. The Casual Hardcore are the people who sparked Starcraft 1’s success, and they are the ones who continue to play Warcraft III to this day, except they play it in the form of DOTA, Heroes of Newerth, and League of Legends. They also play games like Worms, Call of Duty 4, Smash Bros., and World of Warcraft. They choose to play a game because it offers utility in excess of its competitive nature, and because each instance of a game offers a different entertaining variation on the game before it. Variation in the outcome of a game across different play sessions generates cause to replay. Stagnation in outcome generates cause to stay away. In each of the above games, the different characters, abilities, and other aspects of the games maximizes the number of outcomes possible, and the Casual Hardcore love it. To the Casual Hardcore, while Starcraft 2 may be ready to be released, two of its races [Zerg and Terran] remain incomplete and unvaried enough that they may not spark continued Starcraft 2 play over time.
While it may be impossible for the official multiplayer experience of Starcraft 2 to become compelling enough to 100% satiate the Casual Hardcore in the same way World of Warcraft has (for example), it is still very much important to cater to this crowd as their support is absolutely necessary for the success of any game and for the continued growth of any game or community. If I am lucky enough to be able to capture my perception of Starcraft within this appraisal I will have achieved my goal in giving Blizzard feedback (unlikely at best). But, as unlikely as it is, I will try nonetheless.
In sum, I believe the Casual Hardcore were early adopters and trend setters for Starcraft and indeed for many of the above games, bridging the gap between the Hardcore "innovators"/"first adopters" and the Casual Majority groups. I feel that because the hardcore don't hold nearly as much of an influence over the casual majority, the Casual Hardcore's support is necessary to properly diffuse a new game (excluding Korea).
As I believe the Casual Hardcore are the ones who first discovered Starcraft and its’ untold depth as well as its’ mass appeal, we should review some of the examples in Starcraft 1 that provided massive amounts of utility to the Casual Hardcore. Only then can we begin to build context for my appraisal of the game in its public beta form, and only then can we spark a meaningful discussion of some improvements that could be made in Starcraft 2 just prior to or just after release.
1.GENERAL ASSESSMENT OF CASUAL HARDCORE PERSPECTIVE IN STARCRAFT 1 VERSUS STARCRAFT 2
There are several aspects of Starcraft 1 that I believe provided significant utility to the Casual Hardcore which I feel deserve consideration in comparison to Starcraft 2:
a. The Siege Effect and Unit Sound Synergy
In Starcraft 1, arguably one of the coolest units was the Siege Tank. Not only did we as human players most identify with the Terran, but there existed a unit in their arsenal which satiated our inner desire to destroy things. It so filled our need that entire Use Map Settings maps were built around massing Siege Tanks, and massing Siege Tanks was a legitimate strategy in multiplayer. However, the importance of the Siege Tank had absolutely nothing to do with balance in my opinion. The Siege Tank, in fact, represented an addictive mechanism for first time players that filled an inner need of the Casual Hardcore.
Why, though, did the Siege Tank fill this role so well? It is my opinion that it had everything to do with the sound of the Siege mode, as demonstrated here:
The ridiculous and overbearing sound of the siege tank, coupled with the unit’s role, created synergy in the player’s control of his / her units. Not only could he/she move massive amounts of units around that could siege from far away, but they sounded cool as all hell and were the pre-cursor to that mass destruction. The Siege Tank as a unit, and with the sound of its siege mode, represented a perfect crescendo from the start of an offense or defense to its finish. The sound of the unit enhanced an experience from which the player derived immense destructive pleasure.
The more siege tanks the player had, and the more that were put into siege mode, the more echoes of the same amazing sound they heard through their speakers. There was great synergy between the function of the unit and its sound, and for the offensive Casual Hardcore player this synergy provided primal satisfaction, a feeling of power, and a fun and almost comical way to destroy. Simply put, I feel the Casual Hardcore were addicted to the siege mode and its ability, as brought about by the amplification of the sound of the siege tank, to strike fear and destruction into their opponents.
I remember sitting around for minutes at a time and just moving my Siege Tanks from siege mode to “unsieged”, and back and forth. I remember laughing hysterically when I would watch a siege performed by one of my friends on an opposing player. The synergy between the Siege Tank’s ridiculous sound and its function caused me and my friends to experience a large amount of Casual Hardcore pleasure, which inevitably brought us back to the game. If one were to examine Starcraft 1, they would see that there were actually a large amount of instances wherein sound synergy existed in a large variety of units. These instances include Scouts [the sound of the missiles firing off together gave the player comfort of destruction, as well as the echo of the Scout’s unique voice], Wraiths [same as the Scouts but in a different way with a different sound], Battle Cruisers[the laser sounds stacked in such a way that it empowered the player the more battlecruisers they had], and Zerglings [both the sounds of their attacks against structures and the sounds of their deaths empowered the player – one gave the player the feeling that they were knocking down walls and causing their enemies anguish, the other gave them the feeling that their units were infinitely expendable, a feeling which thematically connected the Zerg’s sound with their utility as a race]. For example, see this comparison of Starcraft 1 to Starcraft 2 zergling sounds on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=WfY-XrJg7tA&feature=related
While the sounds of zerg attacks and zerg deaths are clearly exaggerative in Starcraft 1, I feel as though that exaggeration creates extreme utility in the hearts and minds of the Casual Hardcore.
And yet, for some odd reason, this synergy has been removed from Starcaft 2. Not only does the Siege Tank, for example, not make a sound which adds synergy to its function, but it is difficult to find an example in Starcraft 2 where what I call “Sound Amplification” is effectively used.
The closest success in terms of Sound Amplification in Starcraft 2 is likely Thor and his Schwarzenegger voice. However, even Thor lacks synergy because the movement sound of the Thor is not distinctly addictive like the Siege Tank siege mode sound was in Starcraft 1. Simply put, Thor’s movement sound does not add to his function.
Another example in Starcraft 2 that comes close, in my opinion, is the sound of massive amounts of supply depots being withdrawn into the ground and brought back up. But because supply depots have a limited synergistic function, their sound does not add an amazing amount to their use [they have no offensive function].
Other sounds which might come close include burrowing zerg or the conversion of zerglings into banelings, though their sounds do not provide as much synergy because, again, the sounds they employ do not provide an offensive synergy in addition to a creation synergy, that is, the player receives no offensive benefit in their mind with the addition of the sound to the unit.
It is with this lack of Sound Synergy in mind that I strongly urge Blizzard to restore a generally similar sound to the Siege Tank as it had in Starcraft 1, and to consider what other sound synergies they might add to various units which subtly empower the player. A little effort could go a long way (Please keep in mind that I do not have a background in sound creation and therefore am unable to make more specific suggestions in addition to pointing out what I feel is missing).
b. The Macro Unit and The Moving Shot[See Note 1]
Note 1. The moving shot is a concept described brilliantly, although crassly, by LaLush in the following post at TeamLiquid: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121769
When I refer to the Macro Unit above, I refer specifically to the way in which units in Starcraft function together on a mass scale. LaLush, in his much lauded post regarding the Moving Shot hit upon this issue, although in a very round-about way. One of the basic arguments of his post was that because unit movements lack quick strike and maneuverability (due to blizzard’s desire to balance one unit against each other), the number of outcomes of x, y, or z types of battles has been reduced significantly in Starcraft 2 versus Starcraft 1. This position is valid insomuch as the “feel” of unit control has changed significantly and the maneuverability of air units via the mouse has in fact been reduced (it would seem). However, I believe this argument may be missing the point of what’s missing in Starcraft 2, and that is the use of the Macro Unit. I define the Macro Unit as the different function that a unit serves en masse as opposed to the function that that unit plays on its own. Some examples from Starcraft 1 include the Mutalisk, Scout, Corsair and Battlecruiser Unit Stacking [See Note 2], mass ghost lockdown, mass mind control [protoss], mass destruction of unit / building energy via multiple defilers, mass psi storm via high templar, and of course mass sieging with tanks. The ghost lockdown, for example, gave a Macro Unit low cost solution to high tech mass air attacks, as did the defiler and mass mind control. Each of these added a degree of variability which could be quickly adopted in the face of a certain attack.
Note 2. Unit Stacking is here defined as the ability of these air units to stack upon each other. I believe that LaLush may have been speaking as much to this in his post about what is missing from Starcraft 2 as the Moving Shot. The Moving Shot seemed to be intertwined with this ability. I would urge Blizzard to question whether the realism achieved by removing the air stacking of units reduces the “fun” of those air units. In order to combat the impossibility of unit by unit Micro in a stacking situation, Blizzard may wish to give opponents the ability to “swing-zoom” into the unit mass and target the units individually. With this in mind, even though they stack on each other (for purposes of more refined control), the opposing player can target individually. It is more fun to send a “ball missile” of units towards a target location, from the perspective of the Casual Hardcore, than an evenly spaced set of units that are more difficult to control.
Much of the Macro Unit function of individually valuable units seems to have been removed from Starcraft 2. The ghost lockdown was removed, the Unit Stacking was removed, mind control is nerfed comparatively (though it can be useful sometimes for zerg, it does not reach the level of macro usage), and defilers were removed. While siege still represents a compelling Macro Unit, some of its utility to the end player has been removed due to the sound discussion (from above), and as a result of the fact that it is too easily dealt with as a unit (it is weak against multiple units at multiple levels of the tech tree for most races). Consequently, the majority of the Macro Unit structure from Starcraft 1 has been removed in Starcraft 2, and it is my belief that it has been done to Starcraft 2’s detriment. The lack of Macro Unit functionality weakens the utility of the game because it gives the player of any particular race less options with which to work, especially in the end game. And this, in particular, is a problem for the Casual Hardcore as it gives them less interesting options in the game (since the focus of casual hardcore play is mid-late game with large varied armies).
The one unit in Starcraft 2 that feels just right on a macro unit level is the Baneling. Devastating on a micro level, it is also amazing on a fun factor level as a rolling mass of awesomeness. Its functionality is well balanced and makes sense even as a very late game surprise strategy (even if the player won’t be able to win the game with it, it is still fun!). More units should feel like this Blizzard!
c. Musical Pacing
I believe music to be an integral part of why Starcraft 1 was so addictive. The mood set in the songs of Terran specifically drew new players in because it set an atmosphere with which those new players could identify. The Casual Hardcore felt intangible benefits from the pacing of all the music in the first Starcraft.
Thankfully, the music included for the Terran in Starcraft 2 is equally fantastic. It drives the player to move forward with their plans for destruction. Listen to this for example:
High energy. High drive to perform. These are the emotions that this song elicits. It says “work, construct, mine, perform, build an army, and take that army to your foes”. It is, quite simply, a flawless score for the Terran.
Unfortunately, the music for the other races falls slightly short (as elicited in commentary from Apolloster.Yeast). The reason for this is not that the music is not good per se, it’s that it misses the mark with its purpose. It does not contain a fast enough beat to drive the player toward success. I believe that the Protoss music and ESPECIALLY the Zerg music were created too much with the race background in mind and not enough with common humanity in mind. We are humans, we are not Protoss and we are not Zerg. We will never understand things from the Protoss and Zerg perspective of music, and thus synergy is lost if the musical score focuses too much on achieving the feel of those races and not enough on more distinctly human emotions. What do I suggest Blizzard do about this? Mess with the tempos of the music for Protoss and Zerg and see if a solution can be found which aligns the player’s energy with the Protoss and Zerg. Here is an example, although a bit crude and off the cuff, which Sinheart.Icyinferno put together which captures my point:
Again, the tempo of the Terran music is the benchmark against which the music for Protoss and Zerg should be measured in a multiplayer setting in Starcraft 2. As humans, music which sets our mood toward our task is of greater utility than that which doesn’t. I love the Protoss music, but I think the Zerg music, at the very least, definitely needs a little bit of rethinking.
d. Balance
The issue of balance is much discussed in Starcraft circles, and I feel it requires special commentary in this case. As a Casual Hardcore player I do not feel as though there is a difference, at least not a significant one, in the level of the balance between the races in Starcraft 2 versus Starcraft 1. I believe Blizzard has met the majority of its balance goals with Starcraft 2. But I feel I must comment that I do feel that Blizzard may have focused a little too much on balance for Starcraft 2. From a Casual Hardcore perspective, if there is an answer in every race’s toolkit for a particular unit or for a particular method of using a unit, then the game is balanced. I feel as though Pro-Exploits are easily noticeable by Blizzard and by players to the point that Blizzard could always revise the game post-release to fix exploits or rebalance the game. I recognize this is much easier said than done, but I just want to be explicit that I do not fully believe that Balance is the most important thing for Starcraft 2. It is AS important as a lot of other aspects of the game, but I think that to assign it infinite importance beyond all other issues has taken away from the game’s character a bit (take the Siege Tank example from above, for example – it seems obvious to me that perhaps the original game’s creators were just having fun with the addition of such a ridiculous voice / siege mode sound to the Siege Tank, and maybe even the Siege Tank itself. But it was exactly this experimentation that electrified the fan base in their love for the game! I think there is cause for more experiment in Starcraft 2 in the form of higher tech tree unit variability. Fix the experiments that go wrong immediately, but also take a chance that an experiment might add immense utility to the Casual Hardcore and other types of players).
Final Thoughts
I feel that Blizzard has correctly constructed a skeleton for the community in Battle.net 2.0, but Battle.net 2.0 lacks a lot of meat. Additionally, in the same way, Blizzard has successfully constructed a skeleton in Starcraft 2 for the Casual Hardcore, but this skeleton too lacks the meat that will keep the Casual Hardcore around. The meat of Blizzard’s games are what propel them into the stratosphere of gaming history, and as such, there’s some work left to be done. The game is awesome, but it isn’t Blizzard quality, and it isn’t ready for launch. Delay the game. Experiment with some meat to Starcraft 2’s skeleton. Keep the good experiments, kill the bad.
Isn’t this how Blizzard always used to create perfect games?
((
