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I posted something on this subject in another (largely unrelated) thread which was quickly closed, but I've seen enough people say things to the effect of "why doesn't SC2 add more races like WC3 did?" that I thought it would merit a thread.
Simply put, a 4th race has no place in Starcraft. Not in terms of gameplay, not in terms of lore, and most importantly, not in terms of themes.
There are 3 clear niches in SC, both in terms of balance, and in terms of themes--
If its weak and can be built quickly and en masse, and if it is just some sort of monstrous alien thing, its Zerg. They are inspired by Tyranids, Bugs from Starship Troopers, Xenomorphs, etc, and there are loads of other examples that have come since (e.g. the Covenant the Flood in Halo, the Locusts in Gears of War, etc.) If its a space monster, its Zerg.
If it is of medium-level strength, efficient and generally useful, and fits into a "realistic"/human-oriented SciFi setting, its Terran. Battlestar Galactica, Mechwarrior, Space Marines (not just from 40K but pretty much every other scifi game as well), Firefly, and pretty much any other scifi setting where people use guns instead of lasers, all fit into the Terran aesthetic.
If its an incredibly powerful, highly specialized unit that is absolutely amazing at one role, its Protoss. Any really "far future" Scifi, or SciFi which is more "fantastical" rather than realistic (esp. if psychic powers are involved), fits into this--Predators, Eldar, Jedi Knights, War of the Worlds, "Greys", Flying Saucers, Tractor Beams, Time Manipulation and Teleportation, Robots/Droids, even Star Trek with their phasers and "beaming" (which looks just like warping), all fit into the themes of Protoss.
Weak, medium, strong. Alien, Realistic, Far Future. All are covered by one of the Starcraft races. Saying, "but what about a race which is even weaker and more numerous than Zerg" or "what about a race that is even more powerful than Protoss" is just stupid. Zerg are the *embodiment* of the swarm, and Toss are the *embodiment* of individual power. Adding more would just dilute that and undermine the core concepts of the races.
And in terms of thematic niches, if you think about it, *all* Science Fiction (outside of earth-centric or near future stuff like cyberpunk, which obviously wouldn't fit) can be placed roughly into one of the races. Anything you can point to from another scifi movie, book or game, that you think would be cool in Starcraft, can already be fit into one of the thematic niches the established races already fill.
Thats what people tend to miss about the difference between SC and Warcraft.
Warcraft is about different races, not about different themes. Warcraft isn't pitting "realistic" fantasy, or swords and sorcery, against high fantasy or something. Every single Warcraft race fit into a classic High Fantasy aesthetic. It is, basically, the video game version of D&D.
But Starcraft is about "hey what if these 3 different recurring genres of scifi all fought each other?" A new race would also have to fill a new thematic niche, and really, no such thematic niche exists.
Beyond that, of course, balancing 3 races is already difficult as hell. As we've all seen from other games, from both Blizzard and other developers, if you add more races, balancing becomes increasingly impossible. Dawn of War couldn't do it, Warcraft 3 couldn't do it. What would make anyone think it would work in Starcraft?
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On September 12 2010 10:58 awesomoecalypse wrote:
But Starcraft is about "hey what if these 3 different recurring genres of scifi all fought each other?" A new race would also have to fill a new thematic niche, and really, no such thematic niche exists
Are you kidding? How much of Wings of Liberty was "Meet the Xel Naga?"
Nevertheless, Blizzard won't add a fourth race. People don't want it, and it'd be a balancing nightmare for everyone, a surefire way to ruin the game.
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On September 12 2010 11:01 The_Pacifist wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 10:58 awesomoecalypse wrote:
But Starcraft is about "hey what if these 3 different recurring genres of scifi all fought each other?" A new race would also have to fill a new thematic niche, and really, no such thematic niche exists Are you kidding? How much of Wings of Liberty was "Meet the Xel Naga?" Nevertheless, Blizzard won't add a fourth race. People don't want it, and it'd be a balancing nightmare for everyone, a surefire way to ruin the game.
Wouldn't the Xel Naga fill the same niche as Protoss. Per the OP claim?
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I think WC3 had good balance for 4 races. The issue was never updating the map pools, so 1/2 races always dominated. Different maps = balance for races, as is shown in BW.. without new maps, BW would be terran dominated more than it already is (imagine if everygame was Lost Temple still on BW???)
Other than that, I agree that SC should stick with 3 races. but disagree with many of your other points, such as 4 races in a game is not possible to balance. It just takes more work, and with WC3 being more reliant on other factors to balance the game such as heroes and creeps, racial balance was easier to achieve (like I said, outside of the lame map pools/maybe some very minor balance things, but overall it was solid and each race had multiple top tournament titles, which you can argue is more balanced than BW which has only had like 3-4 protoss victories in OSL/MSL's in the past what.. 6 years?)
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3 Races = 3 non-mirror matchups to balance
4 races = 6 non-mirror matchups to balance
Easy as that.
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I disagree. Magic the Gathering had five distinct flavours. White strengthened their armies through support spells, red hit hard with spells, blue was about counters, black was about reviving, and green was about strong heavy units mixed in with light units.
Factions could be modeled with strengths and weaknesses coming from Magic and I think it would still be balanced.
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Are you kidding? How much of Wings of Liberty was "Meet the Xel Naga?"
If Xel'Naga were a playable race, in what way would they fulfill a distinct thematic role from the Protoss?
Ancient? Check
Super-technology/borderline magic powers? Check
Incredible power? Check
The Xel'Naga may appear in the campaign in some sense, but they will never be playable, because then there would be two "ancient, super powerful, far future" races. And racial overlap is unStarcraft.
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You could easily have an entirely machine based race work with different mechanics (ZING!). For instance it could have interchangeable parts and merge/collapse in order to be more effective. Like all units come from one base type (kind of like larva) or any sort of crazy machine idea.
You could also make magic/spirit based race that doesn't really die but losses its ability to manifest itself in our universe.
The options aren't limited to biological, human, and advanced alien at all not even counting hybrids.
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I disagree. Magic the Gathering had five distinct flavours. White strengthened their armies through support spells, red hit hard with spells, blue was about counters, black was about reviving, and green was about strong heavy units mixed in with light units.
Magic the Gathering "flavours" are *exactly* like Warcraft "flavors"--they are a matter of appearance and playstyle, not genre or thematic role. Magic the Gathering, much like Warcraft, is High Fantasy. Black is High Fantasy. White is High Fantasy. Blue is High Fantasy. Red is High Fantasy. Green is High Fantasy.
Starcraft doesn't work like that. It is a clash between different genres of science fiction, not simply different races.
For MtG to be equivalent, there would need to be a color which was "gritty and realistic" and didn't use magic, a high fantasy color which had tons of magic in the d&d sense, and, I dunno, maybe a color modeled on classic fairy tales which had magical elements but not in the "wizards tossing spells" sense. Obviously, this isn't how it works, and its not how Warcraft works either.
But thats how Starcraft works.
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On September 12 2010 11:03 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 11:01 The_Pacifist wrote:On September 12 2010 10:58 awesomoecalypse wrote:
But Starcraft is about "hey what if these 3 different recurring genres of scifi all fought each other?" A new race would also have to fill a new thematic niche, and really, no such thematic niche exists Are you kidding? How much of Wings of Liberty was "Meet the Xel Naga?" Nevertheless, Blizzard won't add a fourth race. People don't want it, and it'd be a balancing nightmare for everyone, a surefire way to ruin the game. Wouldn't the Xel Naga fill the same niche as Protoss. Per the OP claim?
I'm going to admit. That was a badly worded and explained post of mine. Let me try again:
The "hybrid" theme. And there's million and one ways to do it. The greatest strengths of Protoss and Zerg. And, their weaknesses as well. Creepy crawlies clad in a layer of psionic armor. Endless resurrections of the swarm. Etc. etc.
I used to think "Pokemon will never get past the second generation. How many themes can you have for those monster things?" I was wrong. If Blizzard wanted another race, they'd make it happen. The reason there isn't a fourth playable race isn't because it can't fit a "theme," it's simply that Blizzard doesn't want it. Neither do most people.
On September 12 2010 11:06 awesomoecalypse wrote:
And racial overlap is unStarcraft.
Not according to the Xel Naga. And yes, we saw racial overlap in the secret mission all the way back in Brood War.
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You could easily have an entirely machine based race work with different mechanics (ZING!). For instance it could have interchangeable parts and merge/collapse in order to be more effective. Like all units come from one base type (kind of like larva) or any sort of crazy machine idea.
Mech are already Terran. Robots are already Protoss. Larva mechanics are already Zerg.
You could also make magic/spirit based race that doesn't really die but losses its ability to manifest itself in our universe.
Protoss are already the spiritual race. By lore, they even have the "don't die" thing covered, being teleported off the battlefield so their spiritual essences can be turned into immortals.
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when you go for 4, it becomes exponentially harder to balance
wc3 players correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't orc vs undead possibly the most imbalanced matchup in a blizzard RTS (to the point of retardation)
3 is good for Starcraft, keep it classy
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It would be very difficult to have a 4th race, but idk if that means there "should never' be one. There probably will never since its too much work, I dont think it's impossible or would be bad if they had the time or inclination to do it. (Not saying they need one, 3 is fine for me.)
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Katowice25012 Posts
On September 12 2010 11:06 DetriusXii wrote:
I disagree. Magic the Gathering had five distinct flavours. White strengthened their armies through support spells, red hit hard with spells, blue was about counters, black was about reviving, and green was about strong heavy units mixed in with light units.
Factions could be modeled with strengths and weaknesses coming from Magic and I think it would still be balanced.
And, just like War3, Magic has incredibly huge problems with balancing the dynamic between each flavor. Remember when they had to completely redo the color wheel a few years ago because they realized every good ability belonged to blue?
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On September 12 2010 11:06 DetriusXii wrote:
I disagree. Magic the Gathering had five distinct flavours. White strengthened their armies through support spells, red hit hard with spells, blue was about counters, black was about reviving, and green was about strong heavy units mixed in with light units.
Factions could be modeled with strengths and weaknesses coming from Magic and I think it would still be balanced.
Magic is a good example of how much can be encompassed in the 5 colors. Notice that there hasn't ever been an addition to the color pool since the game was first released; each takes good care of having its own theme. Although there are plenty of traditional cards, there are also many more cards that overlap "traits" of the colors. You pointed out regeneration, but green has a decent amount of regeneration as well. Black and Blue share many of the same traits of control. White and Green are involved in a lot of life regen. Black and Red have plenty of direct damage spells and creature destruction.
Starcraft, on the other hand, is defined my how niche each of the races feel. Workers aside (who build VERY differently), each of the races has it's own definitive flavor to it. I thought long and hard about a 4th race that could work for Starcraft, and it just isn't there. There really isn't a theme that can be totally branched out and unique in-universe.
I am open to ideas, though, I would love for someone to prove us all wrong 
On September 12 2010 11:16 heyoka wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 11:06 DetriusXii wrote:
I disagree. Magic the Gathering had five distinct flavours. White strengthened their armies through support spells, red hit hard with spells, blue was about counters, black was about reviving, and green was about strong heavy units mixed in with light units.
Factions could be modeled with strengths and weaknesses coming from Magic and I think it would still be balanced.
And, just like War3, Magic has incredibly huge problems with balancing the dynamic between each flavor. Remember when they had to completely redo the color wheel a few years ago because they realized every good ability belonged to blue?
I am very glad they made that decision, the game (in my opinion) has gotten much better since then!
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It would also ruin the simplicity. And simplicity of the basics means more meaningful complexity of the strategy; higher quality.
Blizzard understands very well the need of simplicity to make the multiplayer truly entertaining and deep -- so they deliberately throw away many units that they have in their platform.
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On September 12 2010 11:15 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
when you go for 4, it becomes exponentially harder to balance
wc3 players correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't orc vs undead possibly the most imbalanced matchup in a blizzard RTS (to the point of retardation)
3 is good for Starcraft, keep it classy
yeah fiends with auto web to counter any air and destroyers, was just pff but thats when i played it years ago, dunno what changed since then, maybe balanced now for all i know. wouldnt mind a 4th race, but only if blizz could balance it immediately without fail which isnt gonna happen xD
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The "hybrid" theme. And there's million and one ways to do it. The greatest strengths of Protoss and Zerg. And, their weaknesses as well. Creepy crawlies clad in a layer of psionic armor. Endless resurrections of the swarm. Etc. etc.
This is in no way a "unique niche" in the sense of a different sci fi genre.
I used to think "Pokemon will never get past the second generation. How many themes can you have for those monster things?"
Pokemon isn't about different genres fighting each other
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first of all, warcraft only had 2 races at first, orcs n humans, the otehr races in warcraft are added as the sotryline gets more indepth, but you'll notice warcraft is still alliance/horde, basically humans vrs orc...
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On September 12 2010 11:01 The_Pacifist wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 10:58 awesomoecalypse wrote:
But Starcraft is about "hey what if these 3 different recurring genres of scifi all fought each other?" A new race would also have to fill a new thematic niche, and really, no such thematic niche exists Are you kidding? How much of Wings of Liberty was "Meet the Xel Naga?" Nevertheless, Blizzard won't add a fourth race. People don't want it, and it'd be a balancing nightmare for everyone, a surefire way to ruin the game.
This 100%.
If I know anything from blizzard is that if they were going to implement a 4th race, they would've planned it years ahead so if they've made that decision (which I'm sure they have by now) then threads like these are just a tad late.
The deathknight (from WoW) is a GREAT example of how introducing a new class/race/etc can completely fuk up your game if not done perfectly which in terms of gaming lingo, a product by blizzard is about as perfect as its gonna get in terms of game balance.
TLDR: If blizzard wants to make a new race, they're better off making a new game and putting the race in that game then trying to force it into sc2.
also (smilies) cuz I'm having a good day lol.
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On September 12 2010 11:21 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +The "hybrid" theme. And there's million and one ways to do it. The greatest strengths of Protoss and Zerg. And, their weaknesses as well. Creepy crawlies clad in a layer of psionic armor. Endless resurrections of the swarm. Etc. etc. This is in no way a "unique niche" in the sense of a different sci fi genre. Show nested quote +I used to think "Pokemon will never get past the second generation. How many themes can you have for those monster things?" Pokemon isn't about different genres fighting each other
Dark pokemon. Fire pokemon. Water pokemon. Steel, psychic, flying, ground, grass. Need I go on?
EDIT: And they also have hybrids. 
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first of all, warcraft only had 2 races at first, orcs n humans, the otehr races in warcraft are added as the sotryline gets more indepth, but you'll notice warcraft is still alliance/horde, basically humans vrs orc...
It doesn't matter how many races Warcraft has. it could have 2, it could have 20. No matter what, they're all high fantasy. There is no Warcraft unit, race, class or monster that wouldn't fit right into a game of D&D.
Again, for Warcraft races to be equivalent to Starcraft races, they wouldn't just have to look and play differently, they would need to draw their inspiration from entirely different kinds of fantasy. You'd need a race based on George RR Martin-style "gritty fantasy", a race based around Conan-like "sword and sorcery", a Tolkeinesque "high fantasy" race, a "Fairy Tale" race, etc.
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most people expected a fourth race in stacraft 2. including me. when i tell people that there's a new starcraft out the first thing they ask is, what is the new race (almost). if they could manage to include a 4th option that was as different to the existing races as they are to each other i think everyone would welcome it as long as it was somewhat balanced. my guess is that they couldn't think of something that was good enough.
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On September 12 2010 11:05 Skyze wrote:
I think WC3 had good balance for 4 races. The issue was never updating the map pools, so 1/2 races always dominated. Different maps = balance for races, as is shown in BW.. without new maps, BW would be terran dominated more than it already is (imagine if everygame was Lost Temple still on BW???)
Other than that, I agree that SC should stick with 3 races. but disagree with many of your other points, such as 4 races in a game is not possible to balance. It just takes more work, and with WC3 being more reliant on other factors to balance the game such as heroes and creeps, racial balance was easier to achieve (like I said, outside of the lame map pools/maybe some very minor balance things, but overall it was solid and each race had multiple top tournament titles, which you can argue is more balanced than BW which has only had like 3-4 protoss victories in OSL/MSL's in the past what.. 6 years?)
The 3 races against each other in SC has win rates over the other with less than 55%. In war3, I believe undead gets ridiculously raped by orc/human (like 60%) and ne gets raped by UD (55%?) orc gets raped by NE. The only mu that was even was HU/NE and even that was stupidly gay.
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On September 12 2010 11:24 alkampfer wrote:
weak, medium , strong ?
so terrans are medium strenght hmmmm...
Marauder best t1 unit is very strong...
Thor is very strong
Bc is very strong...
hmmm i don't think the phylosopy is respected...
You sir fail at some reading comprehension jesus.
He means in the general idea of things. Terran unit medium cost/medium strength, zerg low cost/low strength, protoss high cost/high strength.
Its a general theme, not every single unit is going to fit that theme, eg Ultras, BCs
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Various things that might be tweaked to be unique.
AI/machine race, might be a branch of terran though since they already have their adjutants. Or perhaps a race that uploads their minds into the network upon death instead of being re-born as the protoss.
Pure magic race, think science fantasy like the Darkover novels. Everything they do is magic based. Making it feel and look totally different from Protoss might be hard but is fully possible. Problem is another worker mechanic that fits the theme, maybe summon in slaves from their home planet to build it? Perhaps the Terran variant but needing more workers or some such.
Units would be low tech with lots and lots of spells. Bows, magic staves and variants of lancers, swordsmen and so on. Still loads of overlap with Protoss. Or perhaps having no actual attacks that can penetrate the armors/shields of the other races and thus using magic for all attacks, both ranged and melee. Touch spells being more powerful due to no interference from the air inbetween.
Dimensional gates or direct teleportation for travel between planets, ignoring space except to have some anti space weapons. Most unique part of them would be that they can't visit space for long periods of time with their own technology, limiting the battlefields they can be on.
A pure magic race could probably make its own slot if you tweaked it until it worked and fit. Perhaps all their units are actually groups of magicians specialising in that task, so a tier 3 magic circle has 20 workers in it and you lose them as you lose health. Only to regen back at a teleportation thingy with reinforcements coming in or merging different circles to get a better unit back up to health...
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Dark pokemon. Fire pokemon. Water pokemon. Steel, psychic, flying, ground, grass. Need I go on?
Elements aren't genres, any more than "orc" is a different genre from "elf".
If people really think a new race can fit into Starcraft's modus operandi of "the different races are different genres", then name a genre of Sci Fi that isn't currently covered. Not a new race, like "squid people" or "robot people" or something. A new genre. A type of Sci Fi story, which many different works fit into, which is not currently covered by 1 of the 3 races.
I guarantee you cannot. As I said in the OP, the only major sci fi genre not covered by one of the races is cyberpunk, and that simply doesn't fit into Starcraft in any way, shape or form.
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On September 12 2010 11:14 awesomoecalypse wrote:Mech are already Terran. Robots are already Protoss.
But they're not really. Not in thematic terms, its not their embodiment. As you put it. Dismissing the notion out of hand is fairly weak. A mech, AI race, like the geth from Mass Effect, would be a unique theme.
The whole thread is based around some arbitrary notions of what SC lore is about, its kind of hard to argue against because it boils down to 'nuh-uh' or 'is too'.
In the OP you specifically say you can't have any race weaker than the zerg or more powerful than the protoss, and I'm willing to bet you're going to say theres no point having another in-between.
'There are three races in SC so gosh darnit you can only have three degrees of seperation'
Its funny, in terms of lore Blizzard themselves are setting up a race more powerful than the protoss, guess they're, as you put it, just stupid.
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It's absolutely possible to have another race in Starcraft as long as the race is mechanically distinct.
However most people probably don't want one.
You're right that in the broadest possible terms, there's not enough "thematic" material to bring in another race. However, it's certainly possible to look at things and break them down differently.
For example, lets look:
Terrans - Truckers in Space. Not much else to say here.
Protoss - Babylon 5 Minbari, 40k Eldar. Honor-bound warrior/religious race with telepathic powers.
Zerg - Tyranids. Organic based race with hivemind and extremely destructive.
Possible "themes" for a 4th race:
1. Technology-based adaptationist race. Think Replicators from SG1.
2. Post-Technological race focusing exclusively on psionic powers, energy beings, etc.
3. Espionage-based race. If Protoss are similar to Klingons, then these guys would be more similar to the Romulans.
That's off the top of my head. All of these can fit just fine into the Starcraft Universe (although - naturally when you introduce more things to compare, the points of comparison become more finely tuned. Starcraft covers things in broad strokes with only 3 races, whereas most other science fiction settings featuring multiple aliens will assign certain general characteristics like "Militaristic," "Religious" or "Greedy" to races, and you can get as detailed as you want when discussing characteristics, but the more broadly they're defined the more distinct your races will be.)
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Various things that might be tweaked to be unique.
AI/machine race, might be a branch of terran though since they already have their adjutants. Or perhaps a race that uploads their minds into the network upon death instead of being re-born as the protoss.
Pure magic race, think science fantasy like the Darkover novels. Everything they do is magic based. Making it feel and look totally different from Protoss might be hard but is fully possible. Problem is another worker mechanic that fits the theme, maybe summon in slaves from their home planet to build it? Perhaps the Terran variant but needing more workers or some such.
Units would be low tech with lots and lots of spells. Bows, magic staves and variants of lancers, swordsmen and so on. Still loads of overlap with Protoss. Or perhaps having no actual attacks that can penetrate the armors/shields of the other races and thus using magic for all attacks, both ranged and melee. Touch spells being more powerful due to no interference from the air inbetween.
Dimensional gates or direct teleportation for travel between planets, ignoring space except to have some anti space weapons. Most unique part of them would be that they can't visit space for long periods of time with their own technology, limiting the battlefields they can be on.
A pure magic race could probably make its own slot if you tweaked it until it worked and fit.
See, this at least is a different genre.
The problem is...its not a science fiction genre. You're simply suggesting they add a fantasy race into a sci fi universe.
It would be thematically distinct, but since Starcraft is about sci fi, it still wouldn't fit.
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if another race was added some of the units/abilities would stare to become a bit mirrored and not as unique. See world of warcraft how with so many classes some of the abilities do pretty much the same thing as other classes but has a different name/graphic.
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On September 12 2010 11:05 Chronopolis wrote:
3 Races = 3 non-mirror matchups to balance
4 races = 6 non-mirror matchups to balance
Easy as that.
2 Races = 1 Non-mirror matchup to balance
1 Race = Nothing but a mirror matchup to balance
Not trolling just pointing out why I think that Red Alert 2 was AWESOME.
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On September 12 2010 11:37 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +Various things that might be tweaked to be unique.
AI/machine race, might be a branch of terran though since they already have their adjutants. Or perhaps a race that uploads their minds into the network upon death instead of being re-born as the protoss.
Pure magic race, think science fantasy like the Darkover novels. Everything they do is magic based. Making it feel and look totally different from Protoss might be hard but is fully possible. Problem is another worker mechanic that fits the theme, maybe summon in slaves from their home planet to build it? Perhaps the Terran variant but needing more workers or some such.
Units would be low tech with lots and lots of spells. Bows, magic staves and variants of lancers, swordsmen and so on. Still loads of overlap with Protoss. Or perhaps having no actual attacks that can penetrate the armors/shields of the other races and thus using magic for all attacks, both ranged and melee. Touch spells being more powerful due to no interference from the air inbetween.
Dimensional gates or direct teleportation for travel between planets, ignoring space except to have some anti space weapons. Most unique part of them would be that they can't visit space for long periods of time with their own technology, limiting the battlefields they can be on.
A pure magic race could probably make its own slot if you tweaked it until it worked and fit. See, this at least is a different genre. The problem is...its not a science fiction genre. You're simply suggesting they add a fantasy race into a sci fi universe. It would be thematically distinct, but since Starcraft is about sci fi, it still wouldn't fit.
Ah but the Darkover series takes place on a world that has a highly devolped magical society while being marginally part of an intergalactic empire that shares a lot of similarities with the Terrans in SC. So it is Scifi in setting, while also being fantasy. There are probably other series that uses a high tech environment, but comes to a magical solution as the next step.
edit to expand some. They have hover cars, but power them by magic instead of normal fuels. They have a space port, but don't really care about it. They can produce fire fighting chemicals by extracting and refining it using magic and so on.
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I think a fourth race is unlikely, but I disagree with the people saying it isn't something that can be done or it can't have a unique role.
Anyone here played Earth 2160? That game had three very distinct human factions, and I would love to see another human faction, but something unique unto itself. Perhaps a return of the UED but using mostly robotics and mechs controlled by artificial intelligences but with human commanders.
As far as balance is concerned, that has more to do with units cost/effect ratio than with the race mechanics.
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(although - naturally when you introduce more things to compare, the points of comparison become more finely tuned. Starcraft covers things in broad strokes with only 3 races, whereas most other science fiction settings featuring multiple aliens will assign certain general characteristics like "Militaristic," "Religious" or "Greedy" to races, and you can get as detailed as you want when discussing characteristics, but the more broadly they're defined the more distinct your races will be.)
Thats my point though. Terrans may be, in the most specific sense, "truckers in space". But on a thematic sense, they are also the embodiment of an entire genre of "realistic" and human-oriented science fiction which encompasses many different works, from Mechwarrior to Battlestar Galactica to Firefly.
The other ideas people are bringing up aren't, "hey, there's this entire genre of science fiction which is totally unrepresented in the Starcraft spectrum, so lets add a race to represent that genre" They are, basically, the Warcraft approach of adding races which may be distinct in terms of visuals or gameplay, but don't embody a distinct genre.
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Tbh, I expected to open this up, and the op to just say: "Because Blizzard can barely balance 3"
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i think the unique properties of the three races are quite apparent for any noob to see
thats one reason (of many) i didnt really like wc3. all there races were quite similar. although they built differently, they shared the same tech path, same/similar sieging units, altar/shop and t1 building all with identical functions. there isnt the shield vs regen vs repair/heal properties separating the races either. the units are also all built the same way. boring compared to starcraft IMO.
you cant get any more unique than it is right now. Three races is the maximum you can go and still have completely unique races + perfect balance.
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On September 12 2010 11:46 billyX333 wrote:
Three races is the maximum you can go and still have completely unique races + perfect balance.
Stating such absolutes always comes back to bite you. ^^ It just hasn't been done yet. You could add another one to SC and remain completely unique, my idea for that would be a fantasy race in a sci fi setting. Balancing would of course be up in the air.
edit, question. Do we know what is on the other side of Protoss space?
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As for thematic scifi roles, I am tempted to look at scifi universes with many factions/races. In particular, my mind immediately goes the Stargate universe. In this case, we had a number of roles:
1. Realistic (humans), relying on elite squads
2. Psychic advanced aliens (Goa'uld), relying on powerful ships and weapons, but masses of fighters and soldiers
3. Highly advanced, powerful aliens (Agard), relying on extremely powerful ships
4. Creepy, psychic aliens (Wraiths)
5. Transcendant, mysterious beings (Ancients), like the Xel'Naga
6. Advanced, deceptive beings (Ori), with advanced technology and masses of followers
7. Swarming mechs (Replicators), that are all made of the same basic unit and can combine (imagine that mechanic)
I especially would like to see something like #7.
Ultimately, I think it comes to what characteristics we use to define the niches of races. If we drew a 3x3 of several "distinguishing" characteristics, we may easily find niches for many races. I.e.
On one side, "Biological, Mechanical, Psychic" and on the other side, "Many weak units, Many specialized units, Few powerful units." As you could imagine, we have Zerg fulfilling the first two characteristics, Terran the second two, and Protoss the third two. But what about "Mechanical, Many weak units"? Replicators. "Biological, Few powerful units"? Wraiths, or maybe Species 8472 from Star Trek: Voyager. Something like the Borg from Star Trek would fit "Biolgical", "Mechanical", "Many weak units" (individual Bord), and "Few powerful units" (Borg starships). That would be exciting. Etc.
In summary, by expanding what we consider to distinguish a theme, we can in fact many more themes to explore.
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Why are we even discussing the possibility of a 4th race. This is StarCraft, there will never be a forth race. Never...
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4th race sounds all cool and fun but imo people are really happy with 3 and are not begging like dogs for a 4th. Don't think you have to worry about a 4th race.
why mess with something perfect is probably what blizzard is thinking.
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On September 12 2010 11:48 Yurie wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 11:46 billyX333 wrote:
Three races is the maximum you can go and still have completely unique races + perfect balance.
Stating such absolutes always comes back to bite you. ^^ It just hasn't been done yet. You could add another one to SC and remain completely unique, my idea for that would be a fantasy race in a sci fi setting. Balancing would of course be up in the air. edit, question. Do we know what is on the other side of Protoss space?
ive been brainstorming this idea for awhile on how you could add a 4th race to sc and make it completely unique in every aspect.. ive had no ideas
id love to hear a property that is unique from regen, repair/heal, and shields
also like to hear unique tech paths (lair vs core vs factory/addons) and also mass spawn vs warping vs traditional unit qeue
..just sayin
the hybrids would IMO be the only possible unique race and it would just be a combination of the existing properties which would be boring and redundant
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On September 12 2010 11:48 Yurie wrote:
You could add another one to SC and remain completely unique, my idea for that would be a fantasy race in a sci fi setting. Balancing would of course be up in the air.
I'd rather miss out on that fourth race! Elves and Orcs in Space is for Warhammer 40k. It would not fit and I hope the Xel'naga and the Hybrids remain unplayable.
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I think it could be alright.
WC3 seems to be okay.
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Any one ever play supcom?
Interestingly enough, for the first game's expansion they added a 4th race. When the sequel came out, they REMOVED the 4th race.
I think "random" should be changed to "xel'naga" so that each time you spawn you would create a race and then play that. Random essentially is already a 4th option to choose your race.
oh btw, you called zerg weak. Individual units, yes, may be a tad bit weaker. but "weak" is not good to describe a race at large.
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As for thematic scifi roles, I am tempted to look at scifi universes with many factions/races
See to me, this is entirely the wrong approach. Thats the Warcraft approach. "If these races look different from each other, have different cultures, and have different gameplay mechanics, then thats enough to justify their existence."
Starcraft is more than that. The races aren't just about different appearances, or different cultures, or even different mechanics...they are about entirely different genres, thrown together and made to fight. Those genres encompass huge amounts of variation and MANY different works--so Toss cover not just the Eldar or the Predator, but things like Flying Saucers and tractor beams, teleportation and beaming, laser beams and lightsabers, psychic powers and autonomous combat robots. The entire genre of "far future"/"fantastical" scifi is captured in a single race. It is, by design, incredibly broad and meant to include elements from many, many different works which all fit roughly into the same genre.
Same with Terran. *Anything* that shows up realistic/human-oriented scifi is fitting for Terran, from space marines, to mechwarriors, to BSG-style capital ships, to nukes.
They embody entire genres. A new race would have to do the same.
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I actually want a 4th race (Xel Naga).
This race wouldn't attack, only spell cast. That would be amazing!
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On September 12 2010 11:55 billyX333 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 11:48 Yurie wrote:On September 12 2010 11:46 billyX333 wrote:
Three races is the maximum you can go and still have completely unique races + perfect balance.
Stating such absolutes always comes back to bite you. ^^ It just hasn't been done yet. You could add another one to SC and remain completely unique, my idea for that would be a fantasy race in a sci fi setting. Balancing would of course be up in the air. edit, question. Do we know what is on the other side of Protoss space? ive been brainstorming this idea since 2003 on how you could add a 4th race and make it completely unique in every aspect.. ive had no ideas id love to hear a property that is unique from regen, repair/heal, and shields also like to hear unique tech paths (lair vs core vs factory/addons) and also mass spawn vs warping vs traditional unit qeue ..just sayin
I don't have all the answers since I just thought of it like 40 minutes ago. :p
Unique from regen, repair/heal and shields. Squads of mages/warriors, whatever.
Suggested solution: Since this race is individually weak they always fight in squads. When they lose HP they lose members of the squad like in total war series or Dawn of War. Similar to those series you can get members back through various means. Perhaps have summoners reinforce them for you or have a building you have to go to. It is similar to healing, but if the efficiency of the units goes down slightly per lost member it would be unique (if too much they would need to be very strong at the start).
Tech paths. They teleport in a camp of some sort, I would suggest a tree or some such and make it a natural race with animals (cuddly) and so on to fit a unique look for SC that rings of fantasy. Isn't T and P tech paths pretty much the same in that they build 1, then 2, then 3 or 4, with buildings 4,5,6 needed to get units from them?
As for this race, perhaps something like a summoning ritual with x amount of workers (balance numbers) performing a ritual to get a larger summoning circle in order to get larger circles. Then you have different tiers in how large circles you can call in. With x amount of tiers depending on balancing, timings and costs. Not truly happy with that idea though. But if you have to perform it for each building and have an enabling building it might work.
So you start with building 1, build building 2 with x workers summoning it in, perhaps from a short distance away to proxy it where you can see and can build basic magic cadre a. Then you build building 3 and set your workers to expanding building 2, however many you have/want to building 2.1. This then enables building 4 which enables building 2.2 to be summoned. Building 3 and 4 would then have the upgrades for their tiers, but not for the whole race. I am not fully happy with this idea, but it is basically that you level up the construction buildings, kind of like a tech lab, but taken further.
Also mass spawn vs warping vs traditional unit queue.
The idea I had would be similar to warping. Though the building could keep warping in "people" until the cap set by the building level. Let's say 3,5,7 or 9. Once that number is reached you have to group those units into a cadre or squad with a specific purpose. Perhaps have different kinds of people teleporting in forcing you to make basic units of one kind to get a high enough concentration of people of the other kind for your squad. So if you build squads of 2 warrior kinds then you need to build magic kind since that is all you can build. Not sure that is a needed part, perhaps one type of person or setting a building to what type you want would work.
You could go back to that building and reinforce any losses you had incurred, making that the race's defence. Building a reinforcement building on the front.
Still considering ideas on how to make it fit and be unique. Any other important factors to consider or good ideas for a race of that type?
Oh and I don't really want a 4:th race, this is just fun to discuss.
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On September 12 2010 12:01 awesomoecalypse wrote:-so Toss cover not just the Eldar or the Predator, but things like Flying Saucers and tractor beams, teleportation and beaming, laser beams and lightsabers, psychic powers and autonomous combat robots.
I think the protoss miss several of the things you want to include in them. At least that is my feeling, that toss is a bit too stream lined, especially in the magic department.
edit. Sorry for double post, I'll just go to bed if I am making this stupid mistakes
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On September 12 2010 11:44 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +(although - naturally when you introduce more things to compare, the points of comparison become more finely tuned. Starcraft covers things in broad strokes with only 3 races, whereas most other science fiction settings featuring multiple aliens will assign certain general characteristics like "Militaristic," "Religious" or "Greedy" to races, and you can get as detailed as you want when discussing characteristics, but the more broadly they're defined the more distinct your races will be.) Thats my point though. Terrans may be, in the most specific sense, "truckers in space". But on a thematic sense, they are also the embodiment of an entire genre of "realistic" and human-oriented science fiction which encompasses many different works, from Mechwarrior to Battlestar Galactica to Firefly. The other ideas people are bringing up aren't, "hey, there's this entire genre of science fiction which is totally unrepresented in the Starcraft spectrum, so lets add a race to represent that genre" They are, basically, the Warcraft approach of adding races which may be distinct in terms of visuals or gameplay, but don't embody a distinct genre.
Spot on. Not only would a fourth race add nothing thematically that the current three races already cover, but it would also make balancing the game that much harder.
Blizzard had many years to mull over the idea of adding another playabe race to the SC universe, and I think they made the right choice.
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I agree with the OP so much of what made sc a great, the best RTS of all time, was the completely unique races. Its very possible that a 4th race could very well end that reputation. granted its always possible for blizzard to pull through but idk who said Change was good ^^
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I don't think there should be a 4th race as the ones there are now are great and anymore would jsut imbalance, but there would be plenty more options.
The reason for this is simple, I'm sure most of you know that Starcraft is based almost entirely on warhammer 40k (as warcraft was originally to be a warhammer rts, but blizzard had the licence pulled from under them).
There are still heaps of warhammer mirrors that would be incredibly unique. For instance there is no "come from the ground, plant with no real purpose race" ala the Orks, no chaos powers, though they are a newer addition to warhammer, no necron like race.
But I don't think it is needed at all and I for one am totally happy 3 functional races.
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I think there are two themes not covered by SC (in sci-fi) actually
The Omnipotent: Even if XN were to overlap the "psionic" abilities of protoss, they have the omnipotence trait. I think XN may still be too redundant with protoss however, but a race like the Reapers in ME would be almost COMPLETELY different. Omnipotent machines that engulf other races to be born/prolong their existence. They may not fit into weak-medium-powerful, but they could start weak, and by engulfing other units of their own, or other enemies who are weaker than them, they become more powerful (this sounds retarded, I know, I'm just trying to point out it wouldn't be redundant).
Nature beings: No, the zerg are not spawned from nature, they are simply organic. When I say nature beings, I mean they are LITERALLY part of nature. Many may say this fits only into high-fantasy, but tell me why it can't be sci-fi? Mutalisks can fly in space, why can't nature beings be able to traverse space somehow?
Because I do not feel like explaining each individually: Gameplay would obviously be very different for both, they would both have different themes.
Balance with 4 races would be shit, but I do think it would be fun to have another race. Maybe with their advertised "all-powerful" map editor, someone could come up with a 4th race, just for shits and giggles, maybe bring a WC race into SC.
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On September 12 2010 13:00 Disciple7 wrote:
I think there are two themes not covered by SC (in sci-fi) actually
The Omnipotent: Even if XN were to overlap the "psionic" abilities of protoss, they have the omnipotence trait. I think XN may still be too redundant with protoss however, but a race like the Reapers in ME would be almost COMPLETELY different. Omnipotent machines that engulf other races to be born/prolong their existence. They may not fit into weak-medium-powerful, but they could start weak, and by engulfing other units of their own, or other enemies who are weaker than them, they become more powerful (this sounds retarded, I know, I'm just trying to point out it wouldn't be redundant).
Nature beings: No, the zerg are not spawned from nature, they are simply organic. When I say nature beings, I mean they are LITERALLY part of nature. Many may say this fits only into high-fantasy, but tell me why it can't be sci-fi? Mutalisks can fly in space, why can't nature beings be able to traverse space somehow?
Because I do not feel like explaining each individually: Gameplay would obviously be very different for both, they would both have different themes.
Balance with 4 races would be shit, but I do think it would be fun to have another race. Maybe with their advertised "all-powerful" map editor, someone could come up with a 4th race, just for shits and giggles, maybe bring a WC race into SC.
omnipotent |ämˈnipətənt|
adjective
(of a deity) having unlimited power; able to do anything.
• having ultimate power and influence : an omnipotent sovereign.
Try to balance, reasonably in lore, something omnipotent and tell me how it goes. It doesn't make sense from a gameplay perspective. From a thematic perspective perhaps, but there are overlaps with the Zerg who assimilate other races, and the Protoss with their high technology.
As for nature, I don't really get what you're saying, as I've never heard of anything like it as a scifi theme.
And as for the map editor, due to the ridiculously small data limit, you can barely bring your own models into the game, let alone a whole race.
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On September 12 2010 11:10 blitzkrieger wrote:
You could easily have an entirely machine based race work with different mechanics (ZING!).
I agreed with the OP until I read this, (and subsequently nerdgasmed) because it's the only sci-fi thematic "race" that isn't covered by protoss/terran/zerg. Think of it as a race of terminators, or necrons from warhammer 40k, or the machines from the matrix trilogy.
That said, if you wanted to include them in starcraft and be completely distinct (not that that would be a good idea, of course), you'd have to get rid of the protoss robotic units and make the race completely focused on being techno-spiritual psionic spellcasters and whatnot. Terran mech is fine because there are still humans inside the tanks, they're not automatons.
Another thing is that the theme to this race is being a single-minded force that can't be distracted from their objectives (a la terminators), so this might be stepping on the zerg's toes if you're thinking about starcraft 1 and the overmind. The solution to that is to make the zerg a lot more chaotic and prone to infighting, kind of the 40k ork shtick ("If they ever united in one army they'd take over the universe" etc etc)
So as it stands, I think that leaves the general Sci-Fi race divides as:
"Terrans": the humans that use guns and "realistic" weaponry, and are kind of middle of the road in most regards
"Protoss": the mystics that use magic and lasers/ lightsabers and such; individually powerful
"Zerg": the mindless horde of predatory aliens, usually individually weak but have massive numbers
"The Machines": completely mechanical army that shares a single programmed directive. totally fearless and incredibly resilient
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On September 12 2010 13:31 benetc wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 11:10 blitzkrieger wrote:
You could easily have an entirely machine based race work with different mechanics (ZING!). I agreed with the OP until I read this, (and subsequently nerdgasmed) because it's the only sci-fi thematic "race" that isn't covered by protoss/terran/zerg. Think of it as a race of terminators, or necrons from warhammer 40k, or the machines from the matrix trilogy. That said, if you wanted to include them in starcraft and be completely distinct (not that that would be a good idea, of course), you'd have to get rid of the protoss robotic units and make the race completely focused on being techno-spiritual psionic spellcasters and whatnot. Terran mech is fine because there are still humans inside the tanks, they're not automatons. Another thing is that the theme to this race is being a single-minded force that can't be distracted from their objectives (a la terminators), so this might be stepping on the zerg's toes if you're thinking about starcraft 1 and the overmind. The solution to that is to make the zerg a lot more chaotic and prone to infighting, kind of the 40k ork shtick ("If they ever united in one army they'd take over the universe" etc etc) So as it stands, I think that leaves the general Sci-Fi race divides as: "Terrans": the humans that use guns and "realistic" weaponry, and are kind of middle of the road in most regards "Protoss": the mystics that use magic and lasers/ lightsabers and such; individually powerful "Zerg": the mindless horde of predatory aliens, usually individually weak but have massive numbers "The Machines": completely mechanical army that shares a single programmed directive. totally fearless and incredibly resilient
To me it feels like such a thing would be just zerg, but instead of being made of tissue, they're made of metal. And instead of playing like the massable zerg, they'd play more like the small group of Protoss.
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There hasn't been an AI themed race yet. There are tons of possibilities.
And it doesn't have to be Xel'Naga. It could just be some race that was just discovered in some distant sector. The zerg have been assimilating all sorts of races, so obviously there are other races out there.
So lore-wise there's definitely room for a fourth race. I wouldn't mind it if it stayed in the campaign. Multiplayer on the other hand is just fine with 3.
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Excluding the hybrids, a fourth species did exist in the lore. The Protoss exterminated an alien race for insulting their faith. They created the Collossi as weapons of war for that purpose and then promised to never use them again after they realized that they committed genocide. Which leads to a question: what exactly were reavers? Super happy entertainment pleasure machines?
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Think of it as a race of terminators, or necrons from warhammer 40k, or the machines from the matrix trilogy.
That said, if you wanted to include them in starcraft and be completely distinct (not that that would be a good idea, of course), you'd have to get rid of the protoss robotic units and make the race completely focused on being techno-spiritual psionic spellcasters and whatnot. Terran mech is fine because there are still humans inside the tanks, they're not automatons.
This is a good point. A fully robotic AI race is definitely a defining element of a broad, recurring subgenre of SciFi that shows up in many different works.
But right now, robots and AI fall under the Protoss spectrum of "high technology". Like, nearly half the protoss units are robots/Ai. Probes are robots. Colossi are robots. Sentries are robots. Warp Prisms are robots. Reavers were robots. Interceptors are robots.
So the question is, if there's a robot/AI unit which you'd like to introduce to the game, why couldn't it just be a Protoss unit?
Similarly, if you're going to introduce a mystic unit with magic-like powers, why couldn't it be a Protoss unit?
And if you're going to introduce a new "organic" unit, why can't it just be a Zerg unit.
Right now, the races cover such a broad spectrum, that its hard to see what new units couldn't be easily made to fit into one of them.
edit: for example, say you wanted a unit based on the Terminator. It would be a really strong, "unstoppable" killing machine, and also a robot driven by AI.
How does that not make perfect thematic sense for the Protoss?
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Why there should not be a 4th race :
-3 races : 3 Match-up to balance
-4 races : 6 Match-up to balance... twice more headaches.
Edit : bah didn't see it on the first page a bit too hasty and cant delete post =(
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[/QUOTE]
To me it feels like such a thing would be just zerg, but instead of being made of tissue, they're made of metal. And instead of playing like the massable zerg, they'd play more like the small group of Protoss. [/QUOTE]
Yeah, from the starcraft standpoint that's true. I was kinda replying to the people who are saying "there's no thematic room for a 4th race in the entirety of scifi 'lore' ".
If you get rid of the overmind and just think of "zerg" as really hostile bestial aliens that aren't necessarily all controlled by the same mind, then the differences emerge. It would obviously be really different to attack a planet where there's 4 or 5 different zerg broods fighting each other than attacking a planet controlled by the machine army.
Gameplay wise, (although a 4th race is obviously a terrible idea) you'd probably have to steal the "evolution" subtheme from zerg and make the focus of the machines be "upgrading" - as in your standard fighting unit can modify itself into more advanced units, etc.
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Yeah, from the starcraft standpoint that's true. I was kinda replying to the people who are saying "there's no thematic room for a 4th race in the entirety of scifi 'lore' ".
If you get rid of the overmind and just think of "zerg" as really hostile bestial aliens that aren't necessarily all controlled by the same mind, then the differences emerge. It would obviously be really different to attack a planet where there's 4 or 5 different zerg broods fighting each other than attacking a planet controlled by the machine army.
Gameplay wise, (although a 4th race is obviously a terrible idea) you'd probably have to steal the "evolution" subtheme from zerg and make the focus of the machines be "upgrading" - as in your standard fighting unit can modify itself into more advanced units, etc.
Thats the thing, creating a new "niche" for a new race necessarily involves carving out one of the elements of the existing races, because they're currently so broad. So you end up taking the "hive mind" or "evolution" or "assimilation" component of Zerg, or you take robots/ai, or "magic" type powers/mysticism, away from Protoss, just so the new race can have its own shtick.
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a lot of people are trying to argue and while i tried to keep an open mind, i just didn't find their arguments perplexing.
i agree with op.
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Right now, the races cover such a broad spectrum, that its hard to see what new units couldn't be easily made to fit into one of them.
edit: for example, say you wanted a unit based on the Terminator. It would be a really strong, "unstoppable" killing machine, and also a robot driven by AI.
How does that not make perfect thematic sense for the Protoss?
If you're looking at it from a starcraft perspective, then yeah, robots are protoss. But like you said, the spectrum is really broad, and you could theoretically distill the protoss race into focusing ONLY on psionic units. That frees up the space for a mechanical race.
I mean, if you think about it, the inclusion of robots with protoss is pretty arbitrary, since their whole deal is connecting spiritually with the khala which I assume robots can't do. If you think about other "protoss-like" characters in other sci-fi works, a lot of the time they're pitted against robots (jedi vs droid army in star wars, for example).
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Thats the thing, creating a new "niche" for a new race necessarily involves carving out one of the elements of the existing races, because they're currently so broad. So you end up taking the "hive mind" or "evolution" or "assimilation" component of Zerg, or you take robots/ai, or "magic" type powers/mysticism, away from Protoss, just so the new race can have its own shtick.
Sure, I think we agree on that. It'd be like trying to add a 6th color to magic or something. I'm just saying that a non-starcraft video game could theoretically be made where there are 4 unique races like the ones I described earlier.
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On September 12 2010 11:23 The_Pacifist wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 11:21 awesomoecalypse wrote:The "hybrid" theme. And there's million and one ways to do it. The greatest strengths of Protoss and Zerg. And, their weaknesses as well. Creepy crawlies clad in a layer of psionic armor. Endless resurrections of the swarm. Etc. etc. This is in no way a "unique niche" in the sense of a different sci fi genre. I used to think "Pokemon will never get past the second generation. How many themes can you have for those monster things?" Pokemon isn't about different genres fighting each other Dark pokemon. Fire pokemon. Water pokemon. Steel, psychic, flying, ground, grass. Need I go on? EDIT: And they also have hybrids.
You aren't thinking clearly. Water pokemons are pretty much hard counters to fire but that doesn't mean protoss > terran in SC2. What you're saying has no relavance because there is a TON of more variables in terran and protoss matchup than there is in fire vs water. Terran goes heavy marauders, gets countered by zealot, then counter with heavy marines than gets countered by storms. In pokemon, majority of the time a hydro pump on a fire pokemon is pretty GG. Yes, I know there are hybrids and whatnot but there is way more depth in sc2. Pokemon element types are on a totally different dimension and you cant compare it to sc2
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On September 12 2010 11:14 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +You could easily have an entirely machine based race work with different mechanics (ZING!). For instance it could have interchangeable parts and merge/collapse in order to be more effective. Like all units come from one base type (kind of like larva) or any sort of crazy machine idea. Mech are already Terran. Robots are already Protoss. Larva mechanics are already Zerg. Show nested quote +You could also make magic/spirit based race that doesn't really die but losses its ability to manifest itself in our universe. Protoss are already the spiritual race. By lore, they even have the "don't die" thing covered, being teleported off the battlefield so their spiritual essences can be turned into immortals.
Having vehicles or robots doesn't make a machine race... and the machine parts are analogous to how Zerg starts from 1 spot but not the same. All 3 races are biological in nature. Something like Terminator, Borg, Matrix, Screamers, etc could be another race.
Protoss have spirituality/religion but they are physical biological creatures that die with the exception of archons. Zealots(DTs?) are teleported when they are critically wounded in battle to be refit into goons/immortals, its not their spirit or essence its their physical body...
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All 3 races are biological in nature.
Probes, sentries, warp prisms, colossi, reavers, interceptors...
you were saying?
I think Toss have a pretty clear lock on the "ai/robot unit" niche.
Protoss have spirituality/religion but they are physical biological creatures with the exception of archons.
As you say, we already have a clear example of a transcendent, magical/psychic/spiritual being, and it fits perfectly into one of the existing races.
"Like Toss robot units, only ALL the units are robots." or "Like archons, only ALL their units are like that" is not nearly enough to justify an entirely new race.
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On September 12 2010 11:14 awesomoecalypse wrote:Show nested quote +You could easily have an entirely machine based race work with different mechanics (ZING!). For instance it could have interchangeable parts and merge/collapse in order to be more effective. Like all units come from one base type (kind of like larva) or any sort of crazy machine idea. Mech are already Terran. Robots are already Protoss. Larva mechanics are already Zerg. Show nested quote +You could also make magic/spirit based race that doesn't really die but losses its ability to manifest itself in our universe. Protoss are already the spiritual race. By lore, they even have the "don't die" thing covered, being teleported off the battlefield so their spiritual essences can be turned into immortals.
Technically their spirits are turned into dragoons, actually. And they can't make any more of them, because the zerg have control of the place where all the spirits warped. Immortals are made by putting bigger guns on the last remaining dragoons.
Not that this takes away from your point, I just felt the need to correct you.
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Sure, I think we agree on that. It'd be like trying to add a 6th color to magic or something. I'm just saying that a non-starcraft video game could theoretically be made where there are 4 unique races like the ones I described earlier.
Sure, there could.
But as Starcraft is currently set up, literally any sci fi trope or unit type you can think of can fit neatly into one of the existing races. There is no niche which isn't currently encompassed by one of the races, because the races aren't built around one specific culture ala Warcraft, they're built around entire genres and everything in them.
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On September 12 2010 14:14 awesomoecalypse wrote:Probes, sentries, warp prisms, colossi, reavers, interceptors... you were saying? I think Toss have a pretty clear lock on the "ai/robot unit" niche. Show nested quote +Protoss have spirituality/religion but they are physical biological creatures with the exception of archons. As you say, we already have a clear example of a transcendent, magical/psychic/spiritual being, and it fits perfectly into one of the existing races. "Like Toss robot units, only ALL the units are robots." or "Like archons, only ALL their units are like that" is not nearly enough to justify an entirely new race.
Those are tools just like a tank is. Those are not intelligent AI's they are just scripted programs. I'm talking about an entire race that is self sufficient and advancing of only robots with no biology or it uses biological creatures like humans use machines. Have you ever seen the Terminator?
Protoss are no different than Terran or Zerg because when they actually die they don't come back. I don't think archons have been specified as to what they are exactly but having the assistance of a spiritual/psionic entity doesn't make your race magic/spiritual/energy based. The point is the Protoss aren't machines or spirits but they use them just like Terran are not machines but they use them.
I think you are just dense tbh.
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I'm sure they can balance a 4th race out, and I know they can find a distinct flavor for it. I don't think they will ever do it though cause it just won't pay to pull all that extra work in there. Or, they might just decide its a good excuse to add in another expansion pack.
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Call me a troll if you wish, but I honestly think that the OP, while he has sentient points, doesn't understand the power of creativity in a fantasy setting. Starcraft is very much fantasy ("sci-fi" is a misnomer), and yes, the current Zerg/Terran/Protoss has a very solid, very strong balance in both gameplay elements and themes. However, that doesn't mean that it can't be expanded upon with a fourth race. I've had fun trying to imagine possibilities that would distinguish a potential new alien race from the current three. With enough talented artists (and I mean artists in the broad definition), it would definitely be possible.
Is it going to happen?
Very unlikely.
But... I'd be hard pressed to buy two expansions without the promise of enough new content, and to me that means a fourth race.
=/
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On September 12 2010 14:18 TedJustice wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 11:14 awesomoecalypse wrote:You could easily have an entirely machine based race work with different mechanics (ZING!). For instance it could have interchangeable parts and merge/collapse in order to be more effective. Like all units come from one base type (kind of like larva) or any sort of crazy machine idea. Mech are already Terran. Robots are already Protoss. Larva mechanics are already Zerg. You could also make magic/spirit based race that doesn't really die but losses its ability to manifest itself in our universe. Protoss are already the spiritual race. By lore, they even have the "don't die" thing covered, being teleported off the battlefield so their spiritual essences can be turned into immortals. Technically their spirits are turned into dragoons, actually. And they can't make any more of them, because the zerg have control of the place where all the spirits warped. Immortals are made by putting bigger guns on the last remaining dragoons. Not that this takes away from your point, I just felt the need to correct you.
It's not their spirits it's their physical bodies, it says something like "when Zealots are critically wounded in battle they are teleported and put into the body of a goon". Instead of death they are put in other units. Think of Futurama with their heads in jars, thats what goons, stalkers, immortals are.
The rest of your lore is wrong I think but I'm not big on SC lore cept I have a good memory what I've read.
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On September 12 2010 13:40 DetriusXii wrote:
Excluding the hybrids, a fourth species did exist in the lore. The Protoss exterminated an alien race for insulting their faith. They created the Collossi as weapons of war for that purpose and then promised to never use them again after they realized that they committed genocide. Which leads to a question: what exactly were reavers? Super happy entertainment pleasure machines?
I'm pretty sure reavers were originally used to build things. Think (modern-day, not starcraft) factories, only smaller and moveable. So, basically portable technology manufacturing plants.
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On September 12 2010 14:29 jackofclubs81 wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 13:40 DetriusXii wrote:
Excluding the hybrids, a fourth species did exist in the lore. The Protoss exterminated an alien race for insulting their faith. They created the Collossi as weapons of war for that purpose and then promised to never use them again after they realized that they committed genocide. Which leads to a question: what exactly were reavers? Super happy entertainment pleasure machines? I'm pretty sure reavers were originally used to build things. Think (modern-day, not starcraft) factories, only smaller and moveable. So, basically portable technology manufacturing plants.
Reavers are modified "mobile" factories that were modified to produce scarabs.
Colossi were mining tools weren't they? Nm they were ONLY built for war and the only automaton built for war by Toss.
http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/Colossus
The colossus is an antiquated protoss war machine, dating back to the Kalath Intercession.[2]
It was unique in that it was created purely as a war machine, in contrast to most protoss automatons which were mainly created for industrial and/or resource gathering purposes. Such a trait was demonstrated by the mass slaughter carried out against the kalathi, appalling the protoss. As such, the Conclave outlawed the manufacture of colossi, and existing machines were deactivated before being sealed away. Some were sent to distant asteroids and uninhabited moons.[3]. Others were stored on Aiur, some underwater, awaiting a signal from a beacon.[4] The war against the zerg, however, prompted the return of the colossi to the protoss arsenal.[3]
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Indeed the niche the Xel Naga would most obviously occupy belongs now to the protoss.
Were a new race be added into the game it would most likely be made of those hybrids.
Maybe it would be a race that has similar mechanics to both Z and P but ends up creating unique gameplay.
For instance, two tech paths, one leads to more beffy units like the hybrid reaver from the campaign, the other leads to more caster units like the destroyer.
You would probably have some zealot like unit that would open the tech tree, like the zerg the Xel Naga would need only beacon buildings and would produce everything from a main building, it could have some sort of Hybridling as a worker unit, they would build buildings the the protoss and be used like larva for the other units, they would be produced at this main buildings,
the main building should probably have upgrades like lair and hive.
The supply resource should be some sort of obelisks that can be upgraded later on to dark obelisks to work as shield batteries or somethin
It would be very upgrade focused, all units would have like 2-3 upgrades.
For scouting some caster unit could have an upgrade which allows them a smaller version of scan for like 100 energy or more.
Just so many ideas right now, could certainly be awesome, but in the end, its protoss 2.0 +zerg
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On September 12 2010 11:15 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
wc3 players correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't orc vs undead possibly the most imbalanced matchup in a blizzard RTS (to the point of retardation)
Most top orcs are running somewhere around 80% lifetime winrate against UD. UD with winrate somewhere around 55% was considered total orc killer in that matchup. The maps are a little better for undead now, but it's still not very nice. So, in SC terms of balance it's imbalanced.
There are also quite a few matchups that just don't develop very well despite being roughly 50-50. For example Human vs Orc often goes to a situation where human expands right away, towers up big time and proceeds to tier 3 max upgraded army right away. While it has small details that keep it viable comptetively, I don't think it really is that good for spectating and the whole matchup seems to move on railroad tracks for the vast majority of time. It's playable, but I think it could be a lot better if they only had 3 races to think about.
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WC3 was originally going to have 6 races - http://www.gamespot.com/news/2568873.html
It will be interesting to see what happens if SC2 stays super popular and both expansions sell really well. I could easily imagine some way out of touch Activision/Blizzard exec in 2015 ordering a 3rd expansion with a 4th race to keep the gravy train rolling.
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The races allready overlap thematically. All of them are organic (i.e. its not just the zerg). Terran build machines to use for war as opposed to zerg but so does Protoss. Protoss have psychic abilities but so does Terran (ghosts). Hence it wouldn't make much of a difference if there was an all robot race that would overlap with protoss.
If Blizzard's primary goal was to have races represent individual themes it would make more sense to have 4 races so you could have one that was psychic, one robot, one animal and one human.
That being said Im not in favor of a fourth race as I think it would become too complex. But thats a matter of game mechanics and not the "modus operandi" of starcraft xD
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If they added a fourth race they would have to come up with so many new things, What would the worker unit be? How would the worker make buildings? Could building be anywhere or have to be powered? My point is that they would have to copy stuff from other races which would just be stupid. They won't make a fourth race. period.
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In terms of macro they can still add more flavor to it. Maybe make workers not return the cargo to the main building and gather like wisps from WC3. Basically you can expand without a main. However, you can only put one worker per crystal/geyser node (still need to build refinery kind of building), they are more expensive, and take more time to train, and static defense isn't cost-effective for that without the main building. You can upgrade each unit individually. This would add some differentiation too (some Terran units were like that in the Blizzcon build like the Battlecruiser). Maybe make everything from this hypothetical race mobile, including their buildings. They could assist to build too; however, it would take workers out of resource gathering. Their main has an attack against air/ground, but workers can't attack at all (can be upgraded to do so). Now in terms of niche of attack. Terrans have all ranged attacks, Zergs are melee and ranged, but weaker, and Protoss is like Zerg, but strong and expensive. This race could be based on unpredicability. The basic unit could start really basic weaker cost-wise than their counterparts, but upgraded could suddenly cover a different niche.
Gameplay ideas are still possible to add; however, it's kinda hard to add a new race lore-wise without bullshitting IMO (like in WoW).
Well, anyway, 3 races only in Starcraft just feel perfect. That's why we don't need a 4th race now or in the future. This experimentation is for WC franchise. I hope we can play with 6+ races in WC4. That will be madness!
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On September 12 2010 11:21 TheMick wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 11:15 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
when you go for 4, it becomes exponentially harder to balance
wc3 players correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't orc vs undead possibly the most imbalanced matchup in a blizzard RTS (to the point of retardation)
3 is good for Starcraft, keep it classy yeah fiends with auto web to counter any air and destroyers, was just pff but thats when i played it years ago, dunno what changed since then, maybe balanced now for all i know. wouldnt mind a 4th race, but only if blizz could balance it immediately without fail which isnt gonna happen xD
isn't it more like the other way around?
undead considered to be the weakest race and orc OP?
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Look,
Some people might be completely missing the point of the AI / robot race.
If you added a "Robot" race. It would be:
Non-living automated machines programed to destroy. They would be like philosophical zombies. They have no protoss "soul", human "consciousness", or zerg "hive mind". They go through the motions of massacring you, but don't know it. They're not aware, or alive, just running on programing.
Thematically, Starcraft can be divided like this:
Zerg: "Alien"-like organic hive mind that swarms and infests planets. They have no goal in mind, they just reproduce, consume, evolve, and plague the universe like parasites.
Terran: Humans in the future. Industrial, and able to survive in the far reaches of space through the use of science and technology. Not natural, but intellectually driven.
Protoss: Spiritual and psychic beings that have found a way beyond science of interacting with the universe. Basically a religious jedi-like awareness that allows them to use "spells" and "magic".
The entire Zerg race is like one huge organism with the pulsating buildings that feed on creep and everything. Terran is the human race that has stopped evolving organically, but uses its intellect, science and technology to adapt. Protoss is the enlightened race that transcends dimensions and logic. The Robot race would be like a combination of non-living things that just happen to be arranged together in a way that they're driven to go through the motions of killing you.
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There never going to add a 4th race. One, it would be nearly impossible (maybe or maybe not) to develop a new race which doesn't bleed into the present three. You have insect organisms, human science and alien intellect, what would be the 4th? Second, LOL if you think the balance in this game is anything but perfect. Third, having three races is like playing a complex game of rock, paper, scissors, whereas instead of one selection dominating the other you simply have to tackle the game with different strategics in response to your opponent's race.
If any knew race ever gets released it will most likely be the Xel'naga.
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I'd say your pretty uncreative if you can't think of another niche that could work. The gameplay niches aren't really that polarized that you can generalize it as "Zerg=Swarm, Toss=Powerful, T=Balance between. Terran MMM is going to be bigger then any lategame zerg army, while Zerg T3 is considerably more powerful then anything Terran has besides BC, which are more powerful and expensive then carriers.
Thematically, I'm sure theres something in between "People, Ancient/Magic, and Biological". As many have said "machine" would make sense.
That being said a fourth race is retarded . Not because one can't exist, but there isn't really a good reason it should exist.
The reason why it doesn't exist is because it just dilutes the amount of good unit ideas. Wc3 had tons of units that were variations of each other, and Sc2 really doesn't need that. In Wc3, you had very clear analogues of every unit that exist throughout the game, and in SC2, there are very few past the first two T1 units, and the capital ships and transports.
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What about a race based around elementals? Fire-specific creatures, water-types, electric, etc.
Obviously, it wouldn't fit in with the current StarCraft lore, but I'm wondering how many *extra* units can be tacked on to the current three races before it starts to get stale 
Maybe a fourth race will be for StarCraft 3 
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If they made a new race it would be the Xel-Naga, and they would either have to out-Protoss the Protoss (meaning very expensive, strong units with strong spellcasting and functional specificity), or they'd have to be some weird protoss/zerg hybrid with mechanics that are sort of a fusion between the two. I think adding a new race would probably be do-able, but I imagine that blizzard felt four races would be a bit crowded. I'd even be willing to bet that some of the protoss units we have now were originally part of a Xel-Naga brainstorming process.
I'm sure Blizzard could sit down and come up with a dozen cool units to add to a new race if they wanted to, but if they did I think they would have already. I'd be happy if they added a new race and made it work, but I don't think they will. And I don't think it's just because it would be hard to balance -- they managed to balance WC3 and that game would have been way harder to balance with 4 races + items and hero leveling.
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The Xel'Naga race will be playable in the campaign in Starcraft 3.
Until then we are just going to see the Xel'Naga as we saw it in SC2:WOL
Could a 4th race exist in SP? - Definitely yes!
Could a 4th race exist in MP? No
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On September 12 2010 17:18 thehitman wrote:
The Xel'Naga race will be playable in the campaign in Starcraft 3.
Until then we are just going to see the Xel'Naga as we saw it in SC2:WOL
Could a 4th race exist in SP? - Definitely yes!
Could a 4th race exist in MP? No
Have you read anything that's been said here? It's not happening. It doesn't make sense, and it isn't even feasible in lore.
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In WC3 the races weren't very unique at all aside from heroes.
The units and building methods were extremely similar for every race, where as StarCraft has extreme diversity.
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On September 12 2010 11:21 TheMick wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 11:15 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
when you go for 4, it becomes exponentially harder to balance
wc3 players correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't orc vs undead possibly the most imbalanced matchup in a blizzard RTS (to the point of retardation)
3 is good for Starcraft, keep it classy yeah fiends with auto web to counter any air and destroyers, was just pff but thats when i played it years ago, dunno what changed since then, maybe balanced now for all i know. wouldnt mind a 4th race, but only if blizz could balance it immediately without fail which isnt gonna happen xD
I'm hoping this is a troll.
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...They are inspired by Tyranids, Bugs from Starship Troopers, Xenomorphs, etc,...
...Battlestar Galactica, Mechwarrior, Space Marines (not just from 40K but pretty much every other scifi game as well), Firefly,...
...Predators, Eldar, Jedi Knights, War of the Worlds, "Greys", Flying Saucers, Tractor Beams, Time Manipulation and Teleportation, Robots/Droids, even Star Trek with their phasers and "beaming"...
Nice examples but you know it all comes back to humans, elves and orcs.
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On September 12 2010 18:28 McFoo wrote:Show nested quote +
...They are inspired by Tyranids, Bugs from Starship Troopers, Xenomorphs, etc,...
...Battlestar Galactica, Mechwarrior, Space Marines (not just from 40K but pretty much every other scifi game as well), Firefly,...
...Predators, Eldar, Jedi Knights, War of the Worlds, "Greys", Flying Saucers, Tractor Beams, Time Manipulation and Teleportation, Robots/Droids, even Star Trek with their phasers and "beaming"...
Nice examples but you know it all comes back to humans, elves and orcs.
Yeah but it's the hobbits who did it in the end
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Why does this perception persist that protoss have the 'most powerful' units? I'm pretty sure that terran has the hardest hitting units, and they pay for it with immobility, also have you seen what infantry does to gateway units?
My view of it is that zerg units generally have the least hp, high dps and high speed, where as terran units have medium amount of hp, low/medium speed and ridiculously high damage, whilst protoss units have the highest hp, medium mobility (not counting warp gates) and medium damage until they get later tech.
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Any one who thinks that thematically it is impossible to introduce a 4th race which doesn't overlap with the 3 established races in starcraft is being narrow-minded. Imagine a transformers-like race. 4th race = done.
Also, I disagree that the 3 races in starcraft are exclusively unique from one another. Both terrans and protoss use mechanical structures in the design of nearly every units. For instance, a mech like a goliath is basically a primitive version of a dragoon/stalker/immortal that shoots bullets and uses fuel to operate rather than some weird mystical 'khadarin crystal'. Both are piloted by a living (to some extent) organism.
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On September 12 2010 18:35 Panoptic wrote:
Why does this perception persist that protoss have the 'most powerful' units? I'm pretty sure that terran has the hardest hitting units, and they pay for it with immobility, also have you seen what infantry does to gateway units?
My view of it is that zerg units generally have the least hp, high dps and high speed, where as terran units have medium amount of hp, low/medium speed and ridiculously high damage, whilst protoss units have the highest hp, medium mobility (not counting warp gates) and medium damage until they get later tech.
Have you seen what gateway units do to infantry? IMO gateway vs. barracks is pretty balanced, but a 50 food protoss army typically has fewer units than a 50 food terran army, hence individual protoss units could be considered to be more powerful. They are also more expensive.
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On September 12 2010 11:21 TheGiftedApe wrote:
first of all, warcraft only had 2 races at first, orcs n humans, the otehr races in warcraft are added as the sotryline gets more indepth, but you'll notice warcraft is still alliance/horde, basically humans vrs orc... Horde != Orc.
Horde = Taurens, originally.
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On September 12 2010 11:15 GGTeMpLaR wrote:
when you go for 4, it becomes exponentially harder to balance
wc3 players correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't orc vs undead possibly the most imbalanced matchup in a blizzard RTS (to the point of retardation)
3 is good for Starcraft, keep it classy
It wasnt that bad actually. Just the Blade Master had a slightly too strong crit. I think Wc3 is overall a very well balanced game
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Why does this perception persist that protoss have the 'most powerful' units?
As a rule, Toss units are generally more expensive, higher food, and take longer to build than the "equivalent'" units of other races, and are compensated for it by being individually more powerful than the other races. That doesn't mean their *army* is more powerful, just that a balanced matchup between a gateway army and an MMM ball, for example, will feature fewer Toss units against more Terran units. Zerg are the opposite--cheaper and faster to build, and you need more of them for a balanced matchup.
Note that I'm using "more" and "less" in the most literal sense. I'm not saying A Protoss 50 food army is stronger than a Terran 50 food army which is stronger than a Zerg 50 food army. I am saying 50 food worth of Protoss units will *generally* translate to fewer total units than 50 food worth of Terran units, which will translate to fewer total units than 50 food worth of Zerg units.
And for everyone asking for a robot race, can you name a single robot unit which couldn't work as component of the Toss army? Not from a balance sense, but in the sense of fitting in with their aesthetic.
For example...
Terminators? Unstoppable killing machine AIs. Would fit right in to the Toss aesthetic.
"Squiddies" from the Matrix. Hunter-killer machine AIs. Again, would fit right into a Toss army.
The only difference between a "robot race" unit and a Toss unit would be that somewhere on a manual or website there'd be some fluff saying that the robot race exist in a singular hivemind and are more singleminded or something.
Thats not enough to justify a new race.
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Russian Federation4295 Posts
StarCraft III will have 4 races
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On September 12 2010 11:10 blitzkrieger wrote:
You could easily have an entirely machine based race work with different mechanics (ZING!). For instance it could have interchangeable parts and merge/collapse in order to be more effective. Like all units come from one base type (kind of like larva) or any sort of crazy machine idea.
You could also make magic/spirit based race that doesn't really die but losses its ability to manifest itself in our universe.
The options aren't limited to biological, human, and advanced alien at all not even counting hybrids.
I think this is the truth of it. But Idra would be very upset about this. He might even write a strongly worded letter...
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i somewhat agree with the OP.
starcraft really feeds on sci-fi geek fantasies of alien, predator and space marines in a sandbox. it's the backbone of the entire game.
ingeniously original 'classes' and fighting styles look no further than guildwars. i get chills just thinking about how awesome that game was back in the day...
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On September 12 2010 13:37 TedJustice wrote:
There hasn't been an AI themed race yet. There are tons of possibilities.
And it doesn't have to be Xel'Naga. It could just be some race that was just discovered in some distant sector. The zerg have been assimilating all sorts of races, so obviously there are other races out there.
So lore-wise there's definitely room for a fourth race. I wouldn't mind it if it stayed in the campaign. Multiplayer on the other hand is just fine with 3.
It could be a race that "was" being assimilated by the Zerg on some distant frontier but threw off their oppressors and are only now learning about Humans and Protoss.
OR
What about a race of Borg like units that combine different qualities from all the races.
WAIT
I think I hear Idra sharpening his pencil again.... there will be nerd-rage and terrible terrible splash damage.
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If there will be 4th race, it will be played just like it was in W3TFT, Nagas are playable in single but not in multi
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 12 2010 16:04 sh[A]d[O]w wrote:
Look,
Some people might be completely missing the point of the AI / robot race.
If you added a "Robot" race. It would be:
Non-living automated machines programed to destroy. They would be like philosophical zombies. They have no protoss "soul", human "consciousness", or zerg "hive mind". They go through the motions of massacring you, but don't know it. They're not aware, or alive, just running on programing.
Thematically, Starcraft can be divided like this:
Zerg: "Alien"-like organic hive mind that swarms and infests planets. They have no goal in mind, they just reproduce, consume, evolve, and plague the universe like parasites.
Terran: Humans in the future. Industrial, and able to survive in the far reaches of space through the use of science and technology. Not natural, but intellectually driven.
Protoss: Spiritual and psychic beings that have found a way beyond science of interacting with the universe. Basically a religious jedi-like awareness that allows them to use "spells" and "magic".
The entire Zerg race is like one huge organism with the pulsating buildings that feed on creep and everything. Terran is the human race that has stopped evolving organically, but uses its intellect, science and technology to adapt. Protoss is the enlightened race that transcends dimensions and logic. The Robot race would be like a combination of non-living things that just happen to be arranged together in a way that they're driven to go through the motions of killing you.
This. But I have to correct you on the human thing. Terrans in StarCraft did not stop to evolve, their psionic abilities are still growing, the Spectres are an indication, but this will probably never find its way into Multiplayer for a good reason. But lore-wise mankind is still on the way to a evolutionary level somewhat similar to the Protoss one day perhaps but that's probably million years in the future.
But you're right on the ideology thing. People are trying to argue that there's room for a machine race in SC as no race embodies this theme, on the other hand people are trying to argue that the Protoss war machines encompass that idea. But that's not a good argument, I think. There's no reason that there couldn't be a robotical race, because there are robots in other armies. A machine race is a distinct Sci-Fi theme and by reading the OP it directly came into my (Sci-Fi obsessed) mind that this theme is not embodied by one of the races. The cyborg-race of the Borg in Star Trek, the Replicators of Stargate, the "undead" eternal Necron of Warhammer 40k, the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica, the Machines of Terminator (to some extent). The last two even have the distinction that they were created by humans or another sentient species, which brings an own theme.
But that's not the point. There could be room in SC lore for a machine race, but we do not have to look only on the themes the races embody currently but also on the philosophy behind them:
Zerg: Collectivist, mindless, no individuality, no free will, therefore obviously no virtues, no ethics, no dissent. (Let's leave Kerrigan out here on that.) A mechanical race would fit in this mindset. It's obviously occupied.
Terran: Highly individualistic, outspoken, flexible, but also greedy and ruthless. Have the choice to make the right decision, have the potential to be the most ethical of all species. We are them obviously.
Protoss: Interestingly the Protoss are in between here. Sometimes they are a little bit of what humans could be if they wanted to. They are individuals, they make choices, they have moral but also flaws, so they are accessible to us. But they learned to let their individuality not harm the greater good of their species or the universe (whatever that may be). They are spiritualistic and religious, sometimes also in a bad way that means for example highly conservative, unflexible and cruel.
If we acknowledge that, we will see that there's no more room for another species unless we find a completely different part of human nature and can project it on a new race. (Protoss and Zerg embody parts of human nature to an extent.)
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+ Show Spoiler +On September 13 2010 01:14 LBo wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On September 12 2010 16:04 sh[A]d[O]w wrote:
Look,
Some people might be completely missing the point of the AI / robot race.
If you added a "Robot" race. It would be:
Non-living automated machines programed to destroy. They would be like philosophical zombies. They have no protoss "soul", human "consciousness", or zerg "hive mind". They go through the motions of massacring you, but don't know it. They're not aware, or alive, just running on programing.
Thematically, Starcraft can be divided like this:
Zerg: "Alien"-like organic hive mind that swarms and infests planets. They have no goal in mind, they just reproduce, consume, evolve, and plague the universe like parasites.
Terran: Humans in the future. Industrial, and able to survive in the far reaches of space through the use of science and technology. Not natural, but intellectually driven.
Protoss: Spiritual and psychic beings that have found a way beyond science of interacting with the universe. Basically a religious jedi-like awareness that allows them to use "spells" and "magic".
The entire Zerg race is like one huge organism with the pulsating buildings that feed on creep and everything. Terran is the human race that has stopped evolving organically, but uses its intellect, science and technology to adapt. Protoss is the enlightened race that transcends dimensions and logic. The Robot race would be like a combination of non-living things that just happen to be arranged together in a way that they're driven to go through the motions of killing you. This. But I have to correct you on the human thing. Terrans in StarCraft did not stop to evolve, their psionic abilities are still growing, the Spectres are an indication, but this will probably never find its way into Multiplayer for a good reason. But lore-wise mankind is still on the way to a evolutionary level somewhat similar to the Protoss one day perhaps but that's probably million years in the future. But you're right on the ideology thing. People are trying to argue that there's room for a machine race in SC as no race embodies this theme, on the other hand people are trying to argue that the Protoss war machines encompass that idea. But that's not a good argument, I think. There's no reason that there couldn't be a robotical race, because there are robots in other armies. A machine race is a distinct Sci-Fi theme and by reading the OP it directly came into my (Sci-Fi obsessed) mind that this theme is not embodied by one of the races. The cyborg-race of the Borg in Star Trek, the Replicators of Stargate, the "undead" eternal Necron of Warhammer 40k, the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica, the Machines of Terminator (to some extent). The last two even have the distinction that they were created by humans or another sentient species, which brings an own theme. But that's not the point. There could be room in SC lore for a machine race, but we do not have to look only on the themes the races embody currently but also on the philosophy behind them: Zerg: Collectivist, mindless, no individuality, no free will, therefore obviously no virtues, no ethics, no dissent. (Let's leave Kerrigan out here on that.) A mechanical race would fit in this mindset. It's obviously occupied. Terran: Highly individualistic, outspoken, flexible, but also greedy and ruthless. Have the choice to make the right decision, have the potential to be the most ethical of all species. We are them obviously. Protoss: Interestingly the Protoss are in between here. Sometimes they are a little bit of what humans could be if they wanted to. They are individuals, they make choices, they have moral but also flaws, so they are accessible to us. But they learned to let their individuality not harm the greater good of their species or the universe (whatever that may be). They are spiritualistic and religious, sometimes also in a bad way that means for example highly conservative, unflexible and cruel. If we acknowledge that, we will see that there's no more room for another species unless we find a completely different part of human nature and can project it on a new race. (Protoss and Zerg embody parts of human nature to an extent.)
I think that we shouldn't just look at broad themes for a possible 4th race. Something really narrow and simple can be used to define a race aswell.
For example: A robotic race could easily have a enslaving theme which would define and distinguish them from the other races more than enough. You can come up with a lot of characteristics of human nature that can be used as a "race-defining" theme.
The only question is if a 4th race would fit in the SC universe that well. We sure know about the Xel'Naga but still, the only Xel'Naga that we have seen is the dark voice and I would hate to have the Xel'Naga use the hybrids, that would be just boring as hell...
The 4th race would have to fulfill an important role in the plot without being the new super power in town and that is kinda hard to do with the current state of the story.
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On September 12 2010 11:05 Skyze wrote:
I think WC3 had good balance for 4 races.
Every match-up was slightly imbalanced except for Orc-Undead which was completely broken.
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On September 12 2010 14:18 awesomoecalypse wrote:
Sure, there could.
But as Starcraft is currently set up, literally any sci fi trope or unit type you can think of can fit neatly into one of the existing races. There is no niche which isn't currently encompassed by one of the races, because the races aren't built around one specific culture ala Warcraft, they're built around entire genres and everything in them.
Actually I can think of plenty of sci fi tropes and science fiction concepts that haven't reached trope status that hasn't been touched.
Tropes
1) Hard Sci-Fi race- A faction that doesn't break the boundaries of known science and still manages to kick ass with technology as Mass Drivers and a pathological patience and the societal structure to support such patience to think in the long term (even though they have limited life spans) in ways that looks absurd to the other factions.
2) An actual one mind race- The zerg are a hive mind like ants (stupid in small numbers but as their population grows their ability to perceive and become self aware leads to a developed conscious like the Overmind) A one mind race would be the reverse case were an all powerful being breaks off parts of itself to do certain actions and reduce the stress of having absolute control. This is usually represented by the machine races as seen in the Matrix or the Borg instead of the machine races like the ones in Terminator. But the implications should be clear this doesn't have to be just a machine race. The Similacrum origin story of the universe pretty much falls under this concept and it isn't even sci-fi.
3)Mystical faction - Everything is based on psuedoscience and other false crap like astrology, feng shui and so on. This faction would have a whole bunch of luck based mechanics. The Joey Wheeler of Starcraft.
SciFi concept rarely touched
1) Sentient beings that can perceive and interact with multiple dimensions than the 3rd and possibly 5th dimension the other factions are limited to allowing them to pull off things that seems impossible and looks like magic even to the Xel Naga.
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Obviously Blizzard is going to make decision about a 4th race based on profit, not balance.
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3)Mystical faction - Everything is based on psuedoscience and other false crap like astrology, feng shui and so on. This faction would have a whole bunch of luck based mechanics. The Joey Wheeler of Starcraft.
Protoss?
1) Hard Sci-Fi race- A faction that doesn't break the boundaries of known science and still manages to kick ass with technology as Mass Drivers and a pathological patience and the societal structure to support such patience to think in the long term (even though they have limited life spans) in ways that looks absurd to the other factions.
Ehm, this would just be a boring race that wouldn''t fit into the SC2 aesthetic :/.
You know how big Marine shoulders are? Yeah.
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1) Hard Sci-Fi race- A faction that doesn't break the boundaries of known science and still manages to kick ass with technology as Mass Drivers and a pathological patience and the societal structure to support such patience to think in the long term (even though they have limited life spans) in ways that looks absurd to the other factions.
Terran are already the "realistic" scifi race. Any "realistic" sci fi unit should be a Terran unit.
2) An actual one mind race- The zerg are a hive mind like ants (stupid in small numbers but as their population grows their ability to perceive and become self aware leads to a developed conscious like the Overmind) A one mind race would be the reverse case were an all powerful being breaks off parts of itself to do certain actions and reduce the stress of having absolute control. This is usually represented by the machine races as seen in the Matrix or the Borg instead of the machine races like the ones in Terminator. But the implications should be clear this doesn't have to be just a machine race. The Similacrum origin story of the universe pretty much falls under this concept and it isn't even sci-fi.
Zerg are already the Borg of Starcraft, a hivemind that assimilates other races.
3)Mystical faction - Everything is based on psuedoscience and other false crap like astrology, feng shui and so on. This faction would have a whole bunch of luck based mechanics. The Joey Wheeler of Starcraft.
Toss are already the mystical faction. If you're introducing any sort of unit with magic-type powers, it should be a Protoss unit.
1) Sentient beings that can perceive and interact with multiple dimensions than the 3rd and possibly 5th dimension the other factions are limited to allowing them to pull off things that seems impossible and looks like magic even to the Xel Naga.
Protoss can already effect 4 dimensions (see: Chronoboost, the Motherships Timebomb that was removed). Its hard to see how any gameplay mechanics could operate in 5 dimensions.
Honestly not one of these ideas so sounds completely different from the existing races that any unit you proposed for the new race couldn't fit right into one of the existing ones.
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Warcraft 3 did four races amazingly well, i think starcraft can do this also. The only problem I see is if a new race is comming everyone is going to switch to that race...
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Okay, here's a challenge for people proposing new races.
Name ONE unit that would exist for this new race, that couldn't fit quite easily into one of the existing races.
because so far I haven't seen a single idea that couldn't be made to fit one of the existing 3.
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a new race could easily work in SC2. it just depends on how competent the devs are. but since its obviously not going to be easy they wont do it.
in other words even tho a new race CAN work, the devs find it to hard and frustrating to do so its not going to happen. lazyness is the limiting factor in many games these days.
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I could go for Necrons.
They were always one of my favorite sci-fi lore armies.
For those who don't know their lore:
Necrontyr were an ancient race who were doomed by a very short life-span. For all their technology, they could never find a way to live longer. They make these giant metal statues that their gods eventually come to inhabit, in turn forcing all necrontyr into their own metal statues so that they can continue their service forever.
After rampaging through the universe with their unstoppable metal army, nearly destroying all life, they simply disappear.
Now, people are stumbling upon tomb-worlds with armies of Necrons hidden in deep caverns. Meanwhile, the human empire is finding spies for the necron gods deep within their ranks.
How long have the Necrons been engineering things for their grand return?
Note: I really gutted the lore to fit it in a few sentences.
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On September 12 2010 11:06 awesomoecalypse wrote:If Xel'Naga were a playable race, in what way would they fulfill a distinct thematic role from the Protoss? Ancient? Check Super-technology/borderline magic powers? Check Incredible power? Check The Xel'Naga may appear in the campaign in some sense, but they will never be playable, because then there would be two "ancient, super powerful, far future" races. And racial overlap is unStarcraft.
You're pretty positive about the direction a game will go for just a player. No offense but you're coming on pretty strong here, you aren't on the Blizzard team. I understand what you're saying but no one except Blizzard will ever know whats going to come in the expansions or the next game, that will come in probably 20 years.
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Just a small point, the notion that only strong, weak and medium can be conceptually unique is just ridiculous. Why not strong vs weak and a total of two races, or if you do not think that leaves room for subtility, why not strong, fairly strong, medium, fairly weak, weak?
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hmm i think i might have interesting suggestion conserning OP's question.
WHAT IF !!! - they took all 3 races and divided them into 2 seperate, but self sufficient sub races. For example - you take terran and divide them into Dominion and Confederation. They both have some units in common but the Dominion gets tanks, banshees and goliaths while Confederates get medivac, fbat, marauder, viking etc. Ofcourse Im making up the unit combo, but if they could somehow get the balance by taking some strengths and weaknesses and shuffle them inbeetveen them it could turn out cool. God knows how many units they made for the campaing that lay dormant after they met their use. Same thing would go for zerg and toss. Storywise its very plausable but balancewise yeah i know, next to impossible.
Just an idea tough...^^
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Starcraft is not Warcraft, it is not Command and Conquer, or any other RTS game, it is the only one where players can get paid 6 figure salaries. Keep it at three, no other races are needed. Maybe have one for campaign, but NEVER for multiplayer. That would be the day when Starcraft dies
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Im suggesting that the Xel'Naga serve as the "CREATOR" theme for the story line. You've all been going on and on about Racial themes and balance.
The xel'naga were never designed as a playable race, they are the "deus ex machina" for starcraft 2. The catalyst for impetus. They are the progenitors of the two pure races that cause the struggle in the whole saga.
There ARE 4 races in starcraft2, you can only play 3 of them because the 4th race is the one in the background turning the cogs in the machines, giving you a story, making you want to learn more.
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The AI race thing doesn't fit into protoss at all, the main point of the genre is that the machines turn on their masters. If you want to argue that there's a race for every genre of science fiction, you can't ignore this. Gameplay-wise there are even more possibilities, and it's not like current units could only fit the race that has them (Raven could easily be a protoss flying spellcaster.)
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what about the idea of there being different factions like the route Command & Conquer 3 Kane's Wrath went?
Terran; Confederate/Earth
Protoss; Dark/High
Zerg; loyal to whomever/mastermind
Each faction will specialize in some sort of gameplay within the general idea of the race - confederates might be more bio oriented while earth bound more mech like etc...
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i think there should be a race of sentient dinosaurs armed with fruit guns
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I can't wait for the day that I go random and I go WTF!! Xel'Naga!?!?!?!
Then spend the rest of the match in awe of the awesomeness of sending Toss-Zerg hybrid at my enemy, as well as giant stone protectors for my. I would not put that above Blizz. Remember the whole uber diablo thing ect...
as always
~WithRespect
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This thread appears to be the response of someone who got into a debate of Warcraft 3 vs. Starcraft 2 with it going something like...
"At least Warcraft 3 added new races. Starcraft 2 didn't add any new race at all."
The response of 'But there are no possible races ever to be added to Starcraft since the three races cover all themes ever possible in the minds of man and throughout any and all science fiction' is extremely weak. One's lack of imagination is not evidence of lack of possibility.
From Blizzard's point of view, races are defined more by their art and general shapes. Terran's art is lots of metal, Zerg art full of warm colors with lots of red, and Protoss is very yellow, very curvy, and stylistic like a sports car. The challenge really is to make a race look interesting and the units look interesting.
Can there be more races with themes unlike the current three? Of course. It just requires a stronger imagination than one possessed by the OP:
Earth based race- Think living rocks. Art style would be more brownish. Gameplay-wise could use the map, itself, literally against you. Perhaps could raise and lower lands? Either way, it is a theme drastically different from Terran, Zerg, and Protoss.
Plant based race- Intelligent plants. Art style would be very green. This is actually what the Night Elves are more or less. But it is not represented at all in Terran, Zerg, and Protoss.
Aqua race- Think fish like race. Art style would be very blue. Perhaps they would be the only race to be able to travel through the watery areas of a map. As their base expands, they would flood portions of the map (how would such water affect enemy races? Slow them down? Make their attacks less efficient?). Race could throw tidal waves at the enemy, that would be cool. Terran, Zerg, and Protoss have nothing like that.
Coward race- Would also double as the Espionage Race someone mentioned before. One big problem with the three Starcraft races is that they are so SERIOUS. Zerg can't crack jokes because they are a hive mind. Protoss are too 'holy' to crack jokes. Terran act more like misfits and criminals. The Coward Race would be full of gags and funniness especially because they don't want to fight. They would be like the Spathi in Star Control 2 complete with BUTT missiles that fire from the rear (because they love retreating). The coward theme, covered in science fiction, is nowhere in the current three races. (Warcraft somewhat has this theme with the goblins. Star Trek has it with the Ferengi.)
Also, a fourth race presenting balance issues is the least of concerns. The bigger concern of a fourth race is the single player because of the way Blizzard chose to do single player campaigns in Starcraft 2. The real reason why there is no fourth race in Starcraft 2 is because Blizzard ran out of time. Not even the Zerg were finished for the game's release.
Also, the original plan was for SIX races to be in Warcraft 3, not four (Demons were going to be a race). The discussion of Warcraft 3 vs. Starcraft 2 should be considered moot since Starcraft 2 is made by the same developers who made Warcraft 3.
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lol add a 4th race and everyone would go back to BW, blizz has enough problems it needs to fix let alone adding a fourth race -_-
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blizzard wont add a fourth race because they and 90% of the community dont want a 4th race. I wasnt even aware people were still suggesting this post release. the whole idea behind starcraft is the ability to balance three races which are each extremely unique. Blizzard would not risk changing this formula.
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I think that the perfection of the three races is in the workers building system:
- the zerg has to sacrifice his drone
- the terran has to give up his scv for some seconds
- protoss is just click and go back
there's no 4th possibility
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On September 12 2010 11:06 DetriusXii wrote:
I disagree. Magic the Gathering had five distinct flavours. White strengthened their armies through support spells, red hit hard with spells, blue was about counters, black was about reviving, and green was about strong heavy units mixed in with light units.
Factions could be modeled with strengths and weaknesses coming from Magic and I think it would still be balanced.
Couple of counterarguements.
1. I played magic for a few years, and there was NEVER a balance between all 5 of the colors. Black was always good, white was either really bad, or had a few niche power cards, green was never great but never bad, red was either RDW (red deck wins) or a splash color, and blue was either great or terrible.
2. In mirrodin, they essentially tried to add a sixth color to the game (artifact theme) It had it's own land, its own creatues, (remember ravager?) and it's own ways to blend with the other colors. It was a balance nightmare that ended after the ban of 40% of the cards in it's strongest deck.
3. Magic started with 5 colors, it was designed with 5 colors in mind and their relationships with other colors, and thus each color had its own niche adv/disadv. White was very protective, had an efficient early game(terran) red had capable tools for the right situation, granted they had less tools on their belt, and they had a deadly early game (zerg) green had decent units to start out with but they were inflexible and relied on massing their stronger units to finish the game (toss) black's theme was sacrifice for power and mutual destruction, and blue was about controling the field of battle and turning your opponent's strength against them.
4. Important: Magic was all about the relationship's between the colors both in harmony and chaos. The color wheel, White - Green - Red- Black - Blue - White ....... was meant to represent how each color had unique properties, but also drew from their two ally colors.
For example: White was "allied" (next to) Blue and Green on the color wheel. So while green (agressive growth) and blue (control) were complete opposites, white had some of each of their abilities. It had strong creatures for cheap (green) and powerful spells that could punish an opponent for recklessly attacking (blue). Thus magic was all about picking two or three (or five) colors and making an army from the strengths and weaknesses of those combinations.
A black and white deck, while enemy colors, both shared with blue. Thus black/white made a good control deck. Black could give you great power at the cost of sacrificing your life total or units on the field, and white could help protect those disadvantages by restoring life and balancing out the loss you made.
The game was acout the interactions of 5 different colors. Thus balance was less of an issue. Even if white was garbage in mirrodin, green and blue were both very powerful and thus you didn't need to use white.
Starcrafte however, is a game of individuality rather than blending. It is about the distinct differenced between a terran player and a protoss player and a zerg player.
Terrans (blue white control) have the easiest access to tech, powerful harassment if unconfronted. Are dangerous if no pressure is place on them, and if allowed to set up, can lock you down and control several aspects of the game. They are also the most aware of their surroundings. Their disadvantage is their speed and immobility early game.
Zerg (red black aggro) have fast units that deal large amounts of damage for their cost, but are relatively fragile. They have the strongest early game capabilities and they use these to either cripple their opponent or to establish a stronger grasp int he late game. They are also willing to sacrifice their weaker units to do more comparative damage to their opponents. Their weakness is their inability to defend well or have units with high health.
Protoss(blue green aggro/control) have powerful units that are expensive, but powerful in the long term, they are capable of powerful bursts of aggression early in the game that are derived from their ability to make the most of a small group of specialists. This is helpful against the control player. They are in turn also capable of gaining a resource advantage early game and using a few defensive specialists to try and hold the aggro player at bay. Once they reach the late game, their large supply of resources allows then to build heavily advantageous situational units (colossus, immortals, phoenix, HT) that are capable of destroying less elegant groups of massed units.
The battle against the aggro player(zerg) is one of survival, while against the control player(terran) it is about establishing footholds and gaining a resource advantage in an attempt to break through your opponents "wall" or overpower them in the field.
Kinda creepy for those of us who played magic how similar these races/decks are.
So while their are 5 colors in magic, they are actually all thematically represented in SC2 by the three races. There is no room for a fourth.
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On September 13 2010 04:04 finkelboy wrote:
I think that the perfection of the three races is in the workers building system:
- the zerg has to sacrifice his drone
- the terran has to give up his scv for some seconds
- protoss is just click and go back
there's no 4th possibility
I guess you didn't spend a long time thinking about that.
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On September 13 2010 02:59 awesomoecalypse wrote:
Terran are already the "realistic" scifi race. Any "realistic" sci fi unit should be a Terran unit.
Zerg are already the Borg of Starcraft, a hivemind that assimilates other races.
Toss are already the mystical faction. If you're introducing any sort of unit with magic-type powers, it should be a Protoss unit.
Protoss can already effect 4 dimensions (see: Chronoboost, the Motherships Timebomb that was removed). Its hard to see how any gameplay mechanics could operate in 5 dimensions.
Honestly not one of these ideas so sounds completely different from the existing races that any unit you proposed for the new race couldn't fit right into one of the existing ones.
You put realistic in quotes for a reason. That's because TErran do things that is completely radical in technology. They can create Dyson Spheres. They can create semi-automatic rail guns. They have FTL. They can account for light bending so well they use sattelites on the surface of a planet to look at other parts of the planet. They are an infantile psionic species
Terran is as much soft sci fi as Protoss.
Zerg are nothing like the borg. I was very careful in my description. The zerg are a race that developed sentience from creatures that lacked sentience. Seperate Zerg units from each other and based on their core intelligence level the vast majority become feral. The zerg are a hierarchal Hive mind.
Borg otoh always retain their characteristics as long as the borg nanintes are functioning. That is a holistic Hive mind. Very different beasts.
As for the assimilation point it holds little water. Every faction tries to analyze external threats and copy their advantages. Everyone is trying to better themselves even if the Zerg and one Hive Mind are more explicit and dogmatic in expressing a desire to reach perfection.
Protoss are now a mystical faction so your point stands. In my defense I just pretend SC2 storyline never happened and Blizzard just made the multiplayer portion. Before their butchering of their own lore they weren't handling Protoss as a mystical faction in SC1 and BW.
Be careful here. Time is theorized to be the 5th dimension and we are just abstracting on it and everything the 3 factions do is based on typical understandings of the 3rd and 5th dimension. Interacting and perceiving other dimensions isn't common knowledge. In short the protoss do not count here. Neither do the zerg when you think about the possibility they seem capable of folding space.
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On September 13 2010 04:04 finkelboy wrote:
I think that the perfection of the three races is in the workers building system:
- the zerg has to sacrifice his drone
- the terran has to give up his scv for some seconds
- protoss is just click and go back
there's no 4th possibility
Just to throw out a few in a matter of seconds
-buildings that build buildings
-workers get created when you build a new building
-buildings are built by fighters, not workers
Hell, you could have a whole race with non-standard workers, ie: workers are an ability of your supply depot and only last for 30 seconds each and can only move so far from their home building.
Now you have a sprawling base mechanic as well, we haven't seen that in SC.
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Katowice25012 Posts
On September 13 2010 04:10 bobcat wrote:Show nested quote +On September 12 2010 11:06 DetriusXii wrote:
I disagree. Magic the Gathering had five distinct flavours. White strengthened their armies through support spells, red hit hard with spells, blue was about counters, black was about reviving, and green was about strong heavy units mixed in with light units.
Factions could be modeled with strengths and weaknesses coming from Magic and I think it would still be balanced.
2. In mirrodin, they essentially tried to add a sixth color to the game (artifact theme) It had it's own land, its own creatues, (remember ravager?) and it's own ways to blend with the other colors. It was a balance nightmare that ended after the ban of 40% of the cards in it's strongest deck.
This also happened the first time they did an artifact themed set (Saga). Maro spent a number of years apologizing for both of those instances.
Good thing they're going for number 3 soon!
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Most of you are missing the point here by suggesting things like, zomg AI robots haven't been done. Or borg are completely different from zerg!
Those are but different forms of the same function. We are talking about the most basic level here. In the starcraft universe the 3 functions are weak and many, well rounded, and strong but few. On that scale no other functions can exist that are not essentially either a more extreme form of or a middle ground between two already existing ones (in fact terrans are already a middle ground between zerg and protoss). The only possible alternatives are overpowered or underpowered and would therefore not make sense as a 4th race, as logically they cannot be overpowered and struggling, or underpowered and existing, they would also not exhibit any new characteristics on the fundamental level, but rather two or more already existing ones :
Borg, strong and many -> overpowered.
*something weak and few -> underpowered
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Terran doesn't fit well with being in the middle. Like Protoss is the strong and few and Zerg is weak and many. Terran isn't exactly mid powered with average numbers. They are just all ranged, so you can still add more "flavor" in a 4th creating something in the middle ground or make a all melee race. The function argument doesn't hold true with 3 races in Starcraft IMO.
However, I would say you can't add more races in SC because having only 3 just feel right. Trying to rationalize it can be more difficult.
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Aotearoa39261 Posts
"At least Warcraft 3 added new races. Starcraft 2 didn't add any new race at all."
Accurate assessment
Trash thread
Take it to the bnet forums.
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EPT
