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http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/news/14646-heart-of-the-swarm-to-have-separate-ladder
Posted by Roy "Phantom" Kwan
In an interview with games.on.net, Dustin Browder has revealed that Heart of the Swarm expansion will have its own ladder for any player upgrading to the expansion.
As with its previous RTS titles, Blizzard's StarCraft 2 will have ladders created for each of its expansions. Dustin Browder recently told games.on.net that as with previous RTS expansions, a new ladder will be created for the Heart of the Swarm. Although there will be a separate ladder for HotS, players will still be able to play the Wings of Liberty ladder without having, 'to deal with new units or balance problems or anything like that,' said Browder.
This will most likely mean that at the end of StarCraft 2's final expansion, there will be a total of three separate ladders for the game. Legacy of the Void is the second expansion for StarCraft 2, there is currently very little information on this expansion.
Dustin also stated that there are plans to release a bunch of new maps for the multiplayer experience that will address a lot of issues that fans have raised with the current map pool. These maps, he said, will hopefully be added within the next few weeks.
Other topics the interview touched on were on StarCraft 2 mod maps. Browder elaborated on the origins of the maps Aiur Chef and StarJeweled. Blizzard DotA was also discussed. 'We’re definitely trying to streamline it, but we’re also definitely trying to make it as competitive, or even more competitive,' says Dustin Browder.
mod edit: don't link poll images directly, they expire
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=191526
Here's a poll from a previous post on how the ladder will be set up.
Personally I'm fine with separate ladders since it gives players the choice to play competitively on either game. Having one global aggregated ladder would be a much needed feature. What're your thoughts on this?
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motbob
United States12546 Posts
I vow to someday be #1 on the WoL ladder... even if it LotV gets released and I'm the only competent player left!
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It definitely makes the most sense, much more than having one ladder for both games anyway. I'm sure it will be as much of a ghost town as the RoC ladder or whatever. But I mean that makes sense.
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On February 18 2011 12:54 tsuxiit wrote:
It definitely makes the most sense, much more than having one ladder for both games anyway. I'm sure it will be as much of a ghost town as the RoC ladder or whatever. But I mean that makes sense.
Definitely. I don't see how it is possible to combine both ladders when you have new units/mechanics/maps involved.
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why wouldn't there be?
unless they don't plan on adding any new units...
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I was curious how they were going to go about doing this, and i was hoping they wouldn't be creating a new ladder system. Though my only concern is, what does this mean exactly? If people on different ladders aren't able to play directly against eachother, then this will likely cut into the number of active people on each ladder and cut into wait times for games.
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Hasn't it always been like this for Blizzard RTS? Not really surprising.
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On February 18 2011 12:58 Spacekyod wrote:
I was curious how they were going to go about doing this, and i was hoping they wouldn't be creating a new ladder system. Though my only concern is, what does this mean exactly? If people on different ladders aren't able to play directly against eachother, then this will likely cut into the number of active people on each ladder and cut into wait times for games.
It will cut into the WoL ladder for sure, but since most people will be buying HotS, the difference there is negligible.
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Dustin also stated that there are plans to release a bunch of new maps for the multiplayer experience that will address a lot of issues that fans have raised with the current map pool. These maps, he said, will hopefully be added within the next few weeks.
Please be GSL maps.
Multiple ladders make sense, but they are kind of redundant. Not going to be a ton of people playing on them knowing the older versions aren't going to be very balanced.
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On February 18 2011 12:57 chonkyfire wrote:
why wouldn't there be?
unless they don't plan on adding any new units...
Well why wouldn't there be chat channels or LAN or clan support on release of Bnet 2.0........ oh wait.....
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What they should do is run the WOL ladder for a few months after HOTS, after which it is shut down.
Also provide a VERY cheap digital "upgrade" for anyone with WOL to get into the HOTs ladder. Bascilly just the units, and not the campaign/any other fearutres. Bare minimum for multiplayer I say.
3 separate ladders is a sure way to completely split the community completely. I can understand most people will jump to the expansions, but suddenly a bunch of people are going to be playing on a "dead" ladder ebcause WOL is all they got.
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On February 18 2011 13:04 Stiver wrote:
What they should do is run the WOL ladder for a few months after HOTS, after which it is shut down.
Also provide a VERY cheap digital "upgrade" for anyone with WOL to get into the HOTs ladder. Bascilly just the units, and not the campaign/any other fearutres. Bare minimum for multiplayer I say.
3 separate ladders is a sure way to completely split the community completely. I can understand most people will jump to the expansions, but suddenly a bunch of people are going to be playing on a "dead" ladder ebcause WOL is all they got.
basically a DLC with new ladder? it might work.
we will have to see how it pans out. we cannot predict the future
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I don't see a problem with this. I don't think WoL should be left to dry without a live ladder once Hots comes out and I don't think they should be combined.
When the protoss expansion comes out I think blizz has the resources to keep 3 separate ladders without much trouble.
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Sounds like a reasonable solution for the ladder. Almost every RTS in existence has a separate ladder for their expansions, so it's entirely reasonable for SC2 and its expansions to have them too.
Also, I don't think it should be too much of a problem for Blizzard to keep the entire WoL ladder open after releasing their expansions. The vast majority of serious ladder players will probably switch over to the expansions' ladders, and it would be unfair to kill the WoL ladder when there will probably be a small minority of people who will continue to play it for whatever reason (such as being unable to purchase HoTS for some reason). The community split caused by separate ladders would be quite negligible.
Anyways, it's also interesting to hear Browder talk about adding new multiplayer maps. Hopefully, Blizzard will present to us another set of maps besides the ones in the PTR, although the new Lost Temple looks quite good.
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Does this sound any different than how Warcraft 3 and it's Expansion was?
What's going to be interesting is how Esports will shift. Will it be entirely on-board with HOTS or will it consider both WOL and HOTS?
Balance changes too, would be interesting. If Protoss just has a more advantage on WOL than on HOTS, etc. etc.
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On February 18 2011 12:59 LoLAdriankat wrote:
Hasn't it always been like this for Blizzard RTS? Not really surprising.
Ya, exactly. This was expected.
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Although there will be a separate ladder for HotS, players will still be able to play the Wings of Liberty ladder without having, 'to deal with new units or balance problems or anything like that,' said Browder.
Interestsing statement. When HotS releases, the new units will affect the old units, which may have to be adjusted in response. This may actually mean that unit stats may be different between both ladders (like siege tank damage, just to name something random). Currently this is already the case between single and multiplayer.
This would also imply that WoL will eventually be "perfectly" balanced without the need for expansion units. Blizzard may be getting busy with balancing, if they have to balance two (or even three) different ladders... I wonder how that will work out. Perhaps they will just stop balancing the WoL ladder when HotS is released..
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Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there.
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I don't even understand how else they could have possibly done this. I mean, assuming that the expansions affect the multiplayer game (new units, upgrades, buildings, whatever), then obviously both players have to be on the same version, so when you click play you'd have to pick which version you wanted to play. That means you have essentially two different games. How would you not have them on separate ladders? Would people with the expansion have to keep up with the expansion-free strategies to stay high in the ladder? It just doesn't make any sense.
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Historically, it hasn't been the case that the release of new ladders(or areas, in the case of WoW) has significantly cut into the playing population. WoW has actually gotten pretty expensive and their battle chest system is pretty bad(it never includes the most recent expansion) but I imagine some time after LoV is released the package you will be able to buy will include both expansions.
But yes, historically, people have just bought the expansion and moved on. I remember playing a little bit of Vanilla hardcore D2(by choice) a couple years after the release of LoD and there being a fun little 10 person community. They all owned LoD they just wanted to play with the smaller community.
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On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
Yeah, how dare they keep the exact same system from every other game with expansions they've ever released.
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On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there.
I don't think they will be priced at 60$. Probably more around 40$, and it's not like your just getting a new ladder, your getting all the new units/maps/balance changes.
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To paraphrase iNcontroL: holy shit they're not fucking it all up, instead they're doing something obvious! What a great company!
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In my opinion (which isnt the best by any means) i think they should have a full ladder fir each. Because without it, it almost forces the hardcore players to buy the expansion. id like it to be optional (even though im buying it anyways ;p
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This isnt anything new by Blizzard's history, so it won't really be that bad to get used to.
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On February 18 2011 13:47 Combine wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there. I don't think they will be priced at 60$. Probably more around 40$, and it's not like your just getting a new ladder, your getting all the new units/maps/balance changes.
Why do you think they'll be $40? They're going to be separate, full-size games for full price. HotS is going to have its own giant campaign just like WoL. They've already said this over and over.
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Totally makes sense.
This actually creates really unique opportunities for different types of players it seems. :o
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On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there.
It's not like you are required to play the campaign before you can play multiplayer...
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On February 18 2011 14:02 251 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 13:47 Combine wrote:On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there. I don't think they will be priced at 60$. Probably more around 40$, and it's not like your just getting a new ladder, your getting all the new units/maps/balance changes. Why do you think they'll be $40? They're going to be separate, full-size games for full price. HotS is going to have its own giant campaign just like WoL. They've already said this over and over.
They are using the campaign editor to make additional content only. When SC2 came out they had cover the expenses of creating the actual game and not just the actual content, like the game engine, creation of tools to be used to make the game etc. This is no longer needed so the actual cost of simply adding content to an already working game is much much more cheaper thus the price will be drastically reduced compared to the actual game that was released before the expansion.
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On February 18 2011 14:02 251 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 13:47 Combine wrote:On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there. I don't think they will be priced at 60$. Probably more around 40$, and it's not like your just getting a new ladder, your getting all the new units/maps/balance changes. Why do you think they'll be $40? They're going to be separate, full-size games for full price. HotS is going to have its own giant campaign just like WoL. They've already said this over and over.
They are referring them to as expansions now, and they always price their expansions around the same. There hasn't been an official ruling on 60$ for the last 2 games, even on their site it says the pricing is still in the air but will be priced appropriately. Expansions cost less to make, they already have the engine and everything, they are just adding onto it.
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On February 18 2011 14:10 Integra wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 14:02 251 wrote:On February 18 2011 13:47 Combine wrote:On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there. I don't think they will be priced at 60$. Probably more around 40$, and it's not like your just getting a new ladder, your getting all the new units/maps/balance changes. Why do you think they'll be $40? They're going to be separate, full-size games for full price. HotS is going to have its own giant campaign just like WoL. They've already said this over and over. They are using the campaign editor to make additional content only. When SC2 came out they had cover the expenses of creating the actual game and not just the actual content, like the game engine, creation of tools to be used to make the game etc. This is no longer needed so the actual cost of simply adding content to an already working game is much much more cheaper thus the price will be drastically reduced compared to the actual game that was released before the expansion.
so by that logic any game that uses a preexisting game engine, like CoD, should cost only 10 bucks because it was built on the quake 3 engine and all they had to do was make maps and shit? and record voices? and make new character models? and advertise and do all sorts of business stuff?
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On February 18 2011 12:57 holy_war wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 12:54 tsuxiit wrote:
It definitely makes the most sense, much more than having one ladder for both games anyway. I'm sure it will be as much of a ghost town as the RoC ladder or whatever. But I mean that makes sense. Definitely. I don't see how it is possible to combine both ladders when you have new units/mechanics/maps involved.
Don't worry heart of the swarm will add units to every race, cept zerg. Zerg will get T3 upgrades.
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Oh man I wasn't gonna buy the game, now I have too :C
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On February 18 2011 14:15 rauk wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 14:10 Integra wrote:On February 18 2011 14:02 251 wrote:On February 18 2011 13:47 Combine wrote:On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there. I don't think they will be priced at 60$. Probably more around 40$, and it's not like your just getting a new ladder, your getting all the new units/maps/balance changes. Why do you think they'll be $40? They're going to be separate, full-size games for full price. HotS is going to have its own giant campaign just like WoL. They've already said this over and over. They are using the campaign editor to make additional content only. When SC2 came out they had cover the expenses of creating the actual game and not just the actual content, like the game engine, creation of tools to be used to make the game etc. This is no longer needed so the actual cost of simply adding content to an already working game is much much more cheaper thus the price will be drastically reduced compared to the actual game that was released before the expansion. so by that logic any game that uses a preexisting game engine, like CoD, should cost only 10 bucks because it was built on the quake 3 engine and all they had to do was make maps and shit? and record voices? and make new character models? and advertise and do all sorts of business stuff?
No one ever said it would only cost 10 bucks, most people speculated it would cost 40 bucks.
And yes, since the cost for creating the actual game is out of the picture it becomes much cheaper compared to if you had to both content creation and game creation. You also have to understand that you cannot compare game genres when it comes to prices. Certain genres are easier to add content too. It also depends on the company. How much effort they put into making the game easy to expand.
In Blizzards case they already had before creating SC2 to make alteast 3 more expansions. With that in mind it would make sense to focus allot on creation of tools to easily expand the games content with minimum cost since it ensures reduced production cost with means cheaper expansions for the consumer which means more copys sold and more SC2 games being played with the expansion.
Just look at the editor that came with SC2. people are making FPS and MMORPG games in it for gods sake. Creating content for Sc2 is extremely easy and cheap.
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This means new units will be added to each race. I am in favor of this... 
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My question is what ladder will future GSL be played on?
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im predicting that people will immediately play on the new HotS ladder, complain about imbas, then go back to the "fixed" WoL ladder and play until they decide that blizzard has got their stuff together.
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Here's what's actually going to happen:
My name's Jimmy. Blizzard releases a new expansion. Well, I heard from Timmy that this new expansion sucks so I'm just going to keep WoL. It's way more balanced and stuff! Blizzard patches WoL to have all the changes of the expansion but not the new units, thus destroying the balance of the old game. There is no longer a reason to play WoL ladder at all. Me and Timmy are gonna buy the new expansion cause WoL ladder sucks!
References: Diablo 2, Warcraft 3, WoW
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On February 18 2011 14:35 bearhug wrote:
My question is what ladder will future GSL be played on?
Unless the expansion absolutely sucks it should be obvious that the competitive scene will move over to it.
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On February 18 2011 14:22 Integra wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 14:15 rauk wrote:On February 18 2011 14:10 Integra wrote:On February 18 2011 14:02 251 wrote:On February 18 2011 13:47 Combine wrote:On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there. I don't think they will be priced at 60$. Probably more around 40$, and it's not like your just getting a new ladder, your getting all the new units/maps/balance changes. Why do you think they'll be $40? They're going to be separate, full-size games for full price. HotS is going to have its own giant campaign just like WoL. They've already said this over and over. They are using the campaign editor to make additional content only. When SC2 came out they had cover the expenses of creating the actual game and not just the actual content, like the game engine, creation of tools to be used to make the game etc. This is no longer needed so the actual cost of simply adding content to an already working game is much much more cheaper thus the price will be drastically reduced compared to the actual game that was released before the expansion. so by that logic any game that uses a preexisting game engine, like CoD, should cost only 10 bucks because it was built on the quake 3 engine and all they had to do was make maps and shit? and record voices? and make new character models? and advertise and do all sorts of business stuff? No one ever said it would only cost 10 bucks, most people speculated it would cost 40 bucks. And yes, since the cost for creating the actual game is out of the picture it becomes much cheaper compared to if you had to both content creation and game creation. You also have to understand that you cannot compare game genres when it comes to prices. Certain genres are easier to add content too. It also depends on the company. How much effort they put into making the game easy to expand. In Blizzards case they already had before creating SC2 to make alteast 3 more expansions. With that in mind it would make sense to focus allot on creation of tools to easily expand the games content with minimum cost since it ensures reduced production cost with means cheaper expansions for the consumer which means more copys sold and more SC2 games being played with the expansion. Just look at the editor that came with SC2. people are making FPS and MMORPG games in it for gods sake. Creating content for Sc2 is extremely easy and cheap.
you can't seriously use fan mods as an example for why a new game should be signficantly cheaper. look at natural selection or counterstrike, they're total conversions based on half life. creating content for half life is therefore "extremely easy and cheap." DOTA is only made in the wc3 map editor. therefore hon and dota2 should be cheap, all the content is even pre-created, they're just slapping new names on heroes and spells!
what about commercial game engines? idtech3 has been used for countless games; same for UE2 and UE3. are you going to argue that gears of war shouldn't cost 60 dollars because it just uses UE3?
expansions have been typically cheaper because they reuse art content and are much shorter. just to use LOD for example; 2 new classes and 1 act, compared to the original 4 acts and 5 classes. or AOE2 expansions had just a few campaigns. HOTS and LOTV appear to be entire full-length games in their own right, they just happen to reuse some or most of the units from WOL.
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This isn't too surprising. They just created a separate BW record account and kept Vanilla separate back then as well.
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I like how Dustin talked about new maps coming in the next few weeks and changes to the custom map and popularity systems. Both are topics everyone's been complaining about recently but nobody cares about that now we must discuss what the ladder will be like in a year and how it will be the same as other expansions.
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Probably going to turn out like ROC for wc3 and TFT, probably. Though I dont see anything bad with it.
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Do you guys think Wings of Liberty will still have much of a competitive scene post Heart of the Swarm. I think it would be interesting if the game lived on.
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On February 18 2011 14:52 undyinglight wrote:
Do you guys think Wings of Liberty will still have much of a competitive scene post Heart of the Swarm. I think it would be interesting if the game lived on.
Did normal Starcraft have a competitive scene post BW?
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Hopefully they allow you to view your account's stats between the two games.
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Would that mean higher chances of mirror matches?
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Activision Blizzard really stepping up the will/need to get each expansion as they're released... I understand the fact this was the same, with BW but w/ 2 expansions... I don't know the amount of money they're gonna make it pretty huge... hope the expansions only cost $20 or less... or else I'm gonna have to wait to buy em T_T
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On February 18 2011 14:02 251 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 13:47 Combine wrote:On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there. I don't think they will be priced at 60$. Probably more around 40$, and it's not like your just getting a new ladder, your getting all the new units/maps/balance changes. Why do you think they'll be $40? They're going to be separate, full-size games for full price. HotS is going to have its own giant campaign just like WoL. They've already said this over and over.
Dustin Browder did state in an interview that the new expansions will probably be priced only as expansion packs, not as full games, though they have yet to finalize everything.
Blizzard isn't remaking the multiplayer; they're just adding a few new units/upgrades/tweaks. They aren't remaking Battle.net or any of they fancy menus and interfaces that went along with it. Most of the assets that they will probably use for the campaign already exist in WoL, so they're art team will have a much easier time making new assets for the next game.
Basically, the amount of work and time that they will spend on HoTS and LotV will probably be much less than that of WoL. They spent 4+ years building SC2 from the ground up and tweaking it, yet they are planning on spending at most 2 years on each expansion pack. No matter what, they are not justified in pricing they're expansion packs as full games, and Blizzard knows this.
On February 18 2011 14:22 Integra wrote:
In Blizzards case they already had before creating SC2 to make alteast 3 more expansions. With that in mind it would make sense to focus allot on creation of tools to easily expand the games content with minimum cost since it ensures reduced production cost with means cheaper expansions for the consumer which means more copys sold and more SC2 games being played with the expansion.
They are only going to have at most 2 expansion packs, as they have stated in the past. This isn't WoW where they can expect to churn out expansions every few years with no repercussions. At some point, Blizzard needs to stop updating their multiplayer with new expansions, and as of now they have decided that 2 expansions and some more patches are enough for SC2 to be considered as "complete" as BW.
Unfortunately, no matter what we say or what we claim to be right, it's all just speculation for now. Even Blizzard themselves doesn't really know exactly what their future plans are since they only began production of HotS shortly after WoL was released.
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On February 18 2011 14:43 rauk wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 14:22 Integra wrote:On February 18 2011 14:15 rauk wrote:On February 18 2011 14:10 Integra wrote:On February 18 2011 14:02 251 wrote:On February 18 2011 13:47 Combine wrote:On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there. I don't think they will be priced at 60$. Probably more around 40$, and it's not like your just getting a new ladder, your getting all the new units/maps/balance changes. Why do you think they'll be $40? They're going to be separate, full-size games for full price. HotS is going to have its own giant campaign just like WoL. They've already said this over and over. They are using the campaign editor to make additional content only. When SC2 came out they had cover the expenses of creating the actual game and not just the actual content, like the game engine, creation of tools to be used to make the game etc. This is no longer needed so the actual cost of simply adding content to an already working game is much much more cheaper thus the price will be drastically reduced compared to the actual game that was released before the expansion. so by that logic any game that uses a preexisting game engine, like CoD, should cost only 10 bucks because it was built on the quake 3 engine and all they had to do was make maps and shit? and record voices? and make new character models? and advertise and do all sorts of business stuff? No one ever said it would only cost 10 bucks, most people speculated it would cost 40 bucks. And yes, since the cost for creating the actual game is out of the picture it becomes much cheaper compared to if you had to both content creation and game creation. You also have to understand that you cannot compare game genres when it comes to prices. Certain genres are easier to add content too. It also depends on the company. How much effort they put into making the game easy to expand. In Blizzards case they already had before creating SC2 to make alteast 3 more expansions. With that in mind it would make sense to focus allot on creation of tools to easily expand the games content with minimum cost since it ensures reduced production cost with means cheaper expansions for the consumer which means more copys sold and more SC2 games being played with the expansion. Just look at the editor that came with SC2. people are making FPS and MMORPG games in it for gods sake. Creating content for Sc2 is extremely easy and cheap. you can't seriously use fan mods as an example for why a new game should be signficantly cheaper. look at natural selection or counterstrike, they're total conversions based on half life. creating content for half life is therefore "extremely easy and cheap." DOTA is only made in the wc3 map editor. therefore hon and dota2 should be cheap, all the content is even pre-created, they're just slapping new names on heroes and spells! what about commercial game engines? idtech3 has been used for countless games; same for UE2 and UE3. are you going to argue that gears of war shouldn't cost 60 dollars because it just uses UE3? expansions have been typically cheaper because they reuse art content and are much shorter. just to use LOD for example; 2 new classes and 1 act, compared to the original 4 acts and 5 classes. or AOE2 expansions had just a few campaigns. HOTS and LOTV appear to be entire full-length games in their own right, they just happen to reuse some or most of the units from WOL.
..........not sure if serious
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if these expansions are priced at normal full game point then it will become even more obvious how little this community means to blizz.
IF we meant anything to them there would be no issue with allowing the new units to be used by everyone in multiplayer, and the expansion content would be purely singleplayer for an actual axpansion price.
However i bet we're going to see full price for this for a couple of units and maps :S
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On February 18 2011 14:56 Seam wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 14:52 undyinglight wrote:
Do you guys think Wings of Liberty will still have much of a competitive scene post Heart of the Swarm. I think it would be interesting if the game lived on. Did normal Starcraft have a competitive scene post BW?
It did not, but normal StarCraft did not have a huge e-sports scene devoted to it the day it came out.
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I'm I'm confused about are some other details of the ladder and expansions.
Blizzard said the expansions will be standalone, meaning that it can be played without needing WoL. If this is true, that means that there will be 3 ways to play over these two chapters:
1. WoL only
2. WoL and HotS
3. HotS only
With LotV, this will make for 7 combinations:
1. WoL only
2. WoL and HotS
3. HotS only
4. WoL and LotV
5. WoL and HotS and LotV
6. HotS and LotV
7. LotV only
How are they going to deal with this? 7 different ladders? How will the balance work out?!
Even if LotV and HotS were changed into non-standalone expansions, you'd still have 4 combinations, WoL+HotS, WoL+HotS+LotV, WoL+LotV
I'm also wondering how they are going to prevent people who don't have a certain expansion to play custom games that use those expansion units (data imported from players who do have the expansions), emulating true expansion multiplayer.
That would mean the only reason to get EITHER of the 2 expansions would be for ladder play and the campaign (and maybe less hassle). For the unscrupulous people who pirate, campaign can be played offline/pirated, which leaves only ladder functionality missing.
On February 18 2011 15:08 eviltomahawk wrote:
Dustin Browder did state in an interview that the new expansions will probably be priced only as expansion packs, not as full games, though they have yet to finalize everything.
...
No matter what, they are not justified in pricing they're expansion packs as full games, and Blizzard knows this.
Where did you hear that they would only be priced as expansion packs?
Regarding the justification: like I said, I heard that the 3 games will be standalone, or the 2 others standalone expansions. Assuming this stays the same, that would justify the full price, since people who don't have the game can get just 1 and get the same experience as someone who bought a different one. Obviously, people who already have one of the games wouldn't be getting as much out of it, but that's the way the cookie crumbles.
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On February 18 2011 14:02 251 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 13:47 Combine wrote:On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there. I don't think they will be priced at 60$. Probably more around 40$, and it's not like your just getting a new ladder, your getting all the new units/maps/balance changes. Why do you think they'll be $40? They're going to be separate, full-size games for full price. HotS is going to have its own giant campaign just like WoL. They've already said this over and over. What? They actually said the EXACT opposite for ~2 years in their FAQ on the old SC2 site. I can't find a FAQ like that anymore, but if they said it "over and over" then surely you can find a source? 
Edit: http://us.starcraft2.com/faq.xml They say full game + 2 expansions.
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On February 18 2011 15:12 Xapti wrote:
I'm I'm confused about are some other details of the ladder and expansions.
Blizzard said the expansions will be standalone, meaning that it can be played without needing WoL.
That's not true.
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On February 18 2011 14:43 rauk wrote:
you can't seriously use fan mods as an example for why a new game should be signficantly cheaper.
Actuallly it's a great example. These people with no or little money with only time as resources created entire new genres in the editor. No editor prior to this has been able to achieve this.
look at natural selection or counterstrike, they're total conversions based on half life. creating content for half life is therefore "extremely easy and cheap." DOTA is only made in the wc3 map editor. therefore hon and dota2 should be cheap, all the content is even pre-created, they're just slapping new names on heroes and spells!
If they truly are rehashed from the original game (game engine, programming code, the development tools that were originally created for the creation of the game and so on)then of course they could be be cheaper than the original since it was cheaper to create those games, compared to the original. what exactly are you not understanding?
what about commercial game engines? idtech3 has been used for countless games; same for UE2 and UE3. are you going to argue that gears of war shouldn't cost 60 dollars because it just uses UE3?
There are more to game development than just the engine to take into consideration when creating a new game, and most times the game engine must be modified due to compatibility issues so your argument doesn't really hold even if game engine was the only thing that it took to make a new game.
expansions have been typically cheaper because they reuse art content and are much shorter. just to use LOD for example; 2 new classes and 1 act, compared to the original 4 acts and 5 classes. or AOE2 expansions had just a few campaigns. HOTS and LOTV appear to be entire full-length games in their own right, they just happen to reuse some or most of the units from WOL.
Absolutely.
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On February 18 2011 13:51 confusedcrib wrote:
To paraphrase iNcontroL: holy shit they're not fucking it all up, instead they're doing something obvious! What a great company!
To me, obvious would be allowing everyone full access to Starcraft 2's multiplayer,and those who want to spend time on additional singleplayer can buy the expansions.
With this method, anyone who wants to stay relevant is forced to pay out.
Not sure why this is so hard for you to see.
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On February 18 2011 15:08 eviltomahawk wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 14:22 Integra wrote:
In Blizzards case they already had before creating SC2 to make alteast 3 more expansions. With that in mind it would make sense to focus allot on creation of tools to easily expand the games content with minimum cost since it ensures reduced production cost with means cheaper expansions for the consumer which means more copys sold and more SC2 games being played with the expansion. They are only going to have at most 2 expansion packs, as they have stated in the past. This isn't WoW where they can expect to churn out expansions every few years with no repercussions. At some point, Blizzard needs to stop updating their multiplayer with new expansions, and as of now they have decided that 2 expansions and some more patches are enough for SC2 to be considered as "complete" as BW. Unfortunately, no matter what we say or what we claim to be right, it's all just speculation for now. Even Blizzard themselves doesn't really know exactly what their future plans are since they only began production of HotS shortly after WoL was released.
I stand corrected, don't know where I got that third expansion from haha. I prolly must want a fourth race really bad
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i thnk its retarded personally. one ladder.
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On February 18 2011 14:43 rauk wrote:
HOTS and LOTV appear to be entire full-length games in their own right, they just happen to reuse some or most of the units from WOL. Full-length single player, but not even close in regards to multiplayer
Blizzard said the expansions will be standalone, meaning that it can be played without needing WoL. If this is true, that means that there will be 3 ways to play over these two chapters: I don't recall ever seeing anything saying this.
On February 18 2011 15:16 ProtossGirl wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 13:51 confusedcrib wrote:
To paraphrase iNcontroL: holy shit they're not fucking it all up, instead they're doing something obvious! What a great company! To me, obvious would be allowing everyone full access to Starcraft 2's multiplayer,and those who want to spend time on additional singleplayer can buy the expansions. With this method, anyone who wants to stay relevant is forced to pay out. Not sure why this is so hard for you to see. Excuse me if I'm seeing this wrong. I'm confused, but are you saying the obvious answer is for Blizzard to give away Hots/Lotv multiplayer for free? I can't agree that that would be a good idea.
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I think this will destroy the competitive scene. What will tournaments choose? What will pro gamers play on? And if 99% of pro gamers choose a particular ladder, the other 2 will die anyway.
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On February 18 2011 15:10 ProtossGirl wrote:
if these expansions are priced at normal full game point then it will become even more obvious how little this community means to blizz.
IF we meant anything to them there would be no issue with allowing the new units to be used by everyone in multiplayer, and the expansion content would be purely singleplayer for an actual axpansion price.
However i bet we're going to see full price for this for a couple of units and maps :S
This Girl understood what I meant up there.
Blizzard said the releases would be independent but we wouldn't need to buy all three to play online. In a way this makes it true, but it also makes sure the experience is so poor people will end up forking the extra money or abandoning the game entirely.
I sure hope Blizzard won't try to money grab and charge U$60,00 (which is already 10 bucks more then "normal" PC games), but I won't count on it. I do fear and believe it will be 60.
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I dont understand why people would even consider supporting multiple ladders.
Fragment the community
Dead ladders left behind
Extra cost to participate
This is not a positive thing for any player. It's fucking positive for blizz balance sheet, but not for us.
Why are people supporting this?
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@Xapti
The multiplayer will be the same, just some balance and new units. Each combination isn't going to be different. If it's a true expansion then having LotV means you will have WoL+HotS+LotV in order to play LotV. So there will be at most 3 separate ladders.
Show nested quote +Why do you think they'll be $40? They're going to be separate, full-size games for full price. HotS is going to have its own giant campaign just like WoL. They've already said this over and over. What? They actually said the EXACT opposite for ~2 years in their FAQ on the old SC2 site. I can't find a FAQ like that anymore, but if they said it "over and over" then surely you can find a source?
Ugh I hate how people seem to have caught the idea that each expansion is going to be the full $60 from whiners that also caught the idea from someone else...
Like he said, the expansions will be treated as expansions. This has been stated numerous times. It will probably be $40-50. $40 would be a really great price, considering how great a game SC2 (and all Blizzard games) are. If you compare it with a series like CoD which is $60 per year (plus online subscription), it makes CoD look like shit.
Honestly I wouldn't mind if the expansions were even $60... if the online is free and this game will last at least 12 years like BW (and probably will last wayyyy longer than 12, perhaps even 50 years assuming there is no drastic technological advancement or such in the world).
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On February 18 2011 15:22 Jotoco wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 15:10 ProtossGirl wrote:
if these expansions are priced at normal full game point then it will become even more obvious how little this community means to blizz.
IF we meant anything to them there would be no issue with allowing the new units to be used by everyone in multiplayer, and the expansion content would be purely singleplayer for an actual axpansion price.
However i bet we're going to see full price for this for a couple of units and maps :S This Girl understood what I meant up there. Blizzard said the releases would be independent but we wouldn't need to buy all three to play online. In a way this makes it true, but it also makes sure the experience is so poor people will end up forking the extra money or abandoning the game entirely. I sure hope Blizzard won't try to money grab and charge U$60,00 (which is already 10 bucks more then "normal" PC games), but I won't count on it. I do fear and believe it will be 60.
It stinks Activision all over the damn place! I blame activision for this, not blizzard.
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On February 18 2011 15:15 Na_Dann_Ma_GoGo wrote:
That's not true.
It is true. The question is whether they changed that idea or not. Looking at the way the FAQ is answered, it looks like it may have been changed so that they are NOT standalone.
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On February 18 2011 15:24 ProtossGirl wrote:
I dont understand why people would even consider supporting multiple ladders.
Fragment the community
Dead ladders left behind
Extra cost to participate
This is not a positive thing for any player. It's fucking positive for blizz balance sheet, but not for us.
Why are people supporting this?
Didn't this already happen in Starcraft1? Starcraft vanilla vs Starcraft Broodwar.
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I don't get why this is news, it's obvious that a new ladder would be made. I want an official statement that new units will definitely be coming out for multiplayer. Everything I've read so far seems pretty vague.
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Bunch of cheap bastards in here. Starcraft games are one of the best values around and still the only thing you do is bitch bitch bitch.
If you can't fork over 60$ for such a brilliant game and two expansions years down the line, I don't really know what to tell you. Maybe play/follow other games, you apparently don't like Starcraft that much after all.
On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
Pretty sure you can stil play multiplayer on the WoL ladder when you don't buy HotS. :p
Don't see how that's different from what they announced.
I'm fairly certain the LotV ladder will end up as the defacto standard ladder when all is said and done.
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LOL its looks like it might be another whole fracture. Maybe now it will be a BW forum, WOL forum and HOTS forum.
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On February 18 2011 15:24 ProtossGirl wrote:
I dont understand why people would even consider supporting multiple ladders.
Fragment the community
Dead ladders left behind
Extra cost to participate
This is not a positive thing for any player. It's fucking positive for blizz balance sheet, but not for us.
Why are people supporting this? I don't recall this being a problem at all going from SC1 -> Broodwar
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On February 18 2011 15:26 Inori wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 15:25 apm66 wrote:On February 18 2011 15:22 Jotoco wrote:On February 18 2011 15:10 ProtossGirl wrote:
if these expansions are priced at normal full game point then it will become even more obvious how little this community means to blizz.
IF we meant anything to them there would be no issue with allowing the new units to be used by everyone in multiplayer, and the expansion content would be purely singleplayer for an actual axpansion price.
However i bet we're going to see full price for this for a couple of units and maps :S This Girl understood what I meant up there. Blizzard said the releases would be independent but we wouldn't need to buy all three to play online. In a way this makes it true, but it also makes sure the experience is so poor people will end up forking the extra money or abandoning the game entirely. I sure hope Blizzard won't try to money grab and charge U$60,00 (which is already 10 bucks more then "normal" PC games), but I won't count on it. I do fear and believe it will be 60. It stinks Activision all over the damn place! I blame activision for this, not blizzard. dude, separate ladders were in sc1 (vs bw), d2 (vs lod), wc3 (vs tft). Activision, right.
Like people pointed out, why is this even news. There has always been a new ladder for each expansion since Warcraft2, and that was back in 1995-1996.
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Seriously guys why are you complaining about the price? Starcraft, a series where you can spend tens of thousands of hours playing, especially if you've been playing since SC1. (Average 5 hours a week makes 1500 hours a year... 6 years of SC2 = over 9000 hours).
Can any of those games (let's say RPGs) that focus on campaign only and are $60 and can only net you 75 hours at the very maximum even compare to the replayability of Starcraft?
It's not like Bnet isn't free or anything either.
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On February 18 2011 15:28 Tsagacity wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 15:24 ProtossGirl wrote:
I dont understand why people would even consider supporting multiple ladders.
Fragment the community
Dead ladders left behind
Extra cost to participate
This is not a positive thing for any player. It's fucking positive for blizz balance sheet, but not for us.
Why are people supporting this? I don't recall this being a problem at all going from SC1 -> Broodwar
I dont recall broodwar being planned pre release of starcraft.
I don't recall blizzard charging $60.00 per game 10 years ago
I don't recall activision being involved before.
"hey guys, we got fucked around in the past before.. so lets just be okay with it this time, in a totally different contest!!"
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On February 18 2011 15:30 ProtossGirl wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 15:28 Tsagacity wrote:On February 18 2011 15:24 ProtossGirl wrote:
I dont understand why people would even consider supporting multiple ladders.
Fragment the community
Dead ladders left behind
Extra cost to participate
This is not a positive thing for any player. It's fucking positive for blizz balance sheet, but not for us.
Why are people supporting this? I don't recall this being a problem at all going from SC1 -> Broodwar I dont recall broodwar being planned pre release of starcraft. I don't recall blizzard charging $60.00 per game 10 years ago I don't recall activision being involved before. "hey guys, we got fucked around in the past before.. so lets just be okay with it this time, in a totally different contest!!"
There has always been a new ladder for each expansion since Warcraft2, and that was back in 1995-1996. The reason no one cares is because no one ever seen it as a problem. As in no one really felt they got "fucked"
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I can't believe people are complaining about the community being fractured. EVERYONE will be on HoTS servers, just like with games like WoW. The expansion wont cost much and anyone who is on TL will buy it.
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On February 18 2011 15:24 ProtossGirl wrote:
I dont understand why people would even consider supporting multiple ladders.
Fragment the community
Dead ladders left behind
Extra cost to participate
This is not a positive thing for any player. It's fucking positive for blizz balance sheet, but not for us.
Why are people supporting this?
How is it possible to have 1 ladder for both games?
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On February 18 2011 15:24 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
@Xapti
The multiplayer will be the same, just some balance and new units. Each combination isn't going to be different. If it's a true expansion then having LotV means you will have WoL+HotS+LotV in order to play LotV. So there will be at most 3 separate ladders.
I am stating a fact that blizzard said the expansions would be standalone. I am not saying that they didn't change their minds.
Like I said, the way the FAQ is written, it seems like they may have changed their minds.
Aside from the FAQ, which is not clear, and is not even too reliable, where has it been said that they will not be standalone?
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$60 for a game every year and a half is not a big deal, especially when it's Starcraft 2. There's no releases set for this year, which means you still got at least a year until that $60 is due. That's about 16-17 cents a day, which isn't even enough to sponsor a starving Ethiopian kid, you'll be fine.
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How many people still ladder with Starcraft Vanilla? Lol. Those ladders will die so fast it won't even be funny. It'll be like going on non-iccup servers just to warm up
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On February 18 2011 15:33 AndAgain wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 15:24 ProtossGirl wrote:
I dont understand why people would even consider supporting multiple ladders.
Fragment the community
Dead ladders left behind
Extra cost to participate
This is not a positive thing for any player. It's fucking positive for blizz balance sheet, but not for us.
Why are people supporting this? How is it possible to have 1 ladder for both games?
I work full time, i'm not worried about paying the price they determine is suitable for the game i spend 1000's of hours upon. It just strikes me as daft that as a multiplayer community, everybody seems content with having dead ladders, and a game structure that places needless boundaries to access for its multiplayer features.
in 3 years time, little timmy wants to play some starcraft 2 online, he buys the game.. hits find match, 20 minutes later still no player found  .
He tells his parents he needs the 2 expansions as well, he gets a smack round the head for being daft "we already bought you that game timmy"
"but daaaad... i need to be playing on the only ladder still left alive by the odd corporate decisions to leave 2/3rd's of the game without a community"
"no son, we're not letting you get dragged into this corporate scheme"
"i'll go back to cod then... "
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On February 18 2011 15:46 ProtossGirl wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 15:33 AndAgain wrote:On February 18 2011 15:24 ProtossGirl wrote:
I dont understand why people would even consider supporting multiple ladders.
Fragment the community
Dead ladders left behind
Extra cost to participate
This is not a positive thing for any player. It's fucking positive for blizz balance sheet, but not for us.
Why are people supporting this? How is it possible to have 1 ladder for both games? I work full time, i'm not worried about paying the price they determine is suitable for the game i spend 1000's of hours upon. It just strikes me as daft that as a multiplayer community, everybody seems content with having dead ladders, and a game structure that places needless boundaries to access for its multiplayer features. in 3 years time, little timmy wants to play some starcraft 2 online, he buys the game.. hits find match, 20 minutes later still no player found . He tells his parents he needs the 2 expansions as well, he gets a smack round the head for being daft "we already bought you that game timmy" "but daaaad... i need to be playing on the only ladder still left alive by the odd corporate decisions to leave 2/3rd's of the game without a community" "no son, we're not letting you get dragged into this corporate scheme" "i'll go back to cod then... "
By then there will be a battlechest with all the games bundled for a cheap price. Each game will probably go down in price as the next comes out. WoW has 12 million subs with three expansions to it. It's not the first game to have expansions, everyone knows how they work and they make it pretty apparent you need the later ones to be up with the current players.
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I dont recall broodwar being planned pre release of starcraft. This doesn't matter at all. I could have told you ten years ago, before SC2 was in development, that Starcraft 2 would have an expansion pack. Blizzard has been doing expansions for two decades now.
The only difference between SC->BW vs SC2->exp is the timing of the expansion announcements. Expansions that everyone knew were coming.
I don't recall blizzard charging $60.00 per game 10 years ago Adjust for inflation. $60 is still an incredible entertainment time/cost value if it's a Blizzard quality game.
I don't recall activision being involved before. They weren't, but that statement alone means nothing. Do you have some sort of source or proof to back up an assumption that Activision has some horribly corrupt hold over blizzard? Your posts scream "OMG EVIL CORPORATION" alarmism with absolutely no followup
"hey guys, we got fucked around in the past before.. so lets just be okay with it this time, in a totally different contest!!" How did we get fucked in the past? I paid $50 and played the game consistently for ten years. Actually it was more than that because I bought Brood War several times due to losing discs.
He tells his parents he needs the 2 expansions as well, he gets a smack round the head for being daft "we already bought you that game timmy" Little Timmy deserves a smack on the head for not just buying the battle chest 
P.S. Your little timmy SOB story makes you sound like a politician: "Won't somebody please think of the children?!"
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I am stating a fact that blizzard said the expansions would be standalone. I am not saying that they didn't change their minds.
Like I said, the way the FAQ is written, it seems like they may have changed their minds.
Aside from the FAQ, which is not clear, and is not even too reliable, where has it been said that they will not be standalone?
I think you quoted the wrong person, or misunderstood me? I'm responding to how you asked if there would be a different ladder for every combination of game.
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On February 18 2011 12:51 motbob wrote:
I vow to someday be #1 on the WoL ladder... even if it LotV gets released and I'm the only competent player left!
LOL, I fully endorse this ;-)
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awesome. i thought they would close down bnet for you until you bought the expansion
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Expansions have never costed 60 dollars, and I almost guarantee this one won't cost 60 dollars either. It's the same formula that they've followed for years, there's really no news here, it's status quo. I'm perfectly fine with it, I just hope the expansions don't destroy the balance of the game. I just hope that one of them ends 4 gating in PvP. Otherwise the legacy of the void will leave a pretty cheesy legacy.
Edit: I think warcraft 2's expansion was preplanned before warcraft 2 was release, I think everyone is certain that Diablo2's expansion was preplanned as well. I remember having to install tons of data from the original Diablo 2 disc when the expansion was released.
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On February 18 2011 15:54 Combine wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 15:46 ProtossGirl wrote:On February 18 2011 15:33 AndAgain wrote:On February 18 2011 15:24 ProtossGirl wrote:
I dont understand why people would even consider supporting multiple ladders.
Fragment the community
Dead ladders left behind
Extra cost to participate
This is not a positive thing for any player. It's fucking positive for blizz balance sheet, but not for us.
Why are people supporting this? How is it possible to have 1 ladder for both games? I work full time, i'm not worried about paying the price they determine is suitable for the game i spend 1000's of hours upon. It just strikes me as daft that as a multiplayer community, everybody seems content with having dead ladders, and a game structure that places needless boundaries to access for its multiplayer features. in 3 years time, little timmy wants to play some starcraft 2 online, he buys the game.. hits find match, 20 minutes later still no player found . He tells his parents he needs the 2 expansions as well, he gets a smack round the head for being daft "we already bought you that game timmy" "but daaaad... i need to be playing on the only ladder still left alive by the odd corporate decisions to leave 2/3rd's of the game without a community" "no son, we're not letting you get dragged into this corporate scheme" "i'll go back to cod then... " By then there will be a battlechest with all the games bundled for a cheap price. Each game will probably go down in price as the next comes out. WoW has 12 million subs with three expansions to it. It's not the first game to have expansions, everyone knows how they work and they make it pretty apparent you need the later ones to be up with the current players.
Shame WoW costs like $100 to get into now.
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so what does this mean for professionals? will the GSL and stuff still be in WoL?
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On February 18 2011 15:46 ProtossGirl wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 15:33 AndAgain wrote:On February 18 2011 15:24 ProtossGirl wrote:
I dont understand why people would even consider supporting multiple ladders.
Fragment the community
Dead ladders left behind
Extra cost to participate
This is not a positive thing for any player. It's fucking positive for blizz balance sheet, but not for us.
Why are people supporting this? How is it possible to have 1 ladder for both games? I work full time, i'm not worried about paying the price they determine is suitable for the game i spend 1000's of hours upon. It just strikes me as daft that as a multiplayer community, everybody seems content with having dead ladders, and a game structure that places needless boundaries to access for its multiplayer features. in 3 years time, little timmy wants to play some starcraft 2 online, he buys the game.. hits find match, 20 minutes later still no player found . He tells his parents he needs the 2 expansions as well, he gets a smack round the head for being daft "we already bought you that game timmy" "but daaaad... i need to be playing on the only ladder still left alive by the odd corporate decisions to leave 2/3rd's of the game without a community" "no son, we're not letting you get dragged into this corporate scheme" "i'll go back to cod then... "
1) seriously, fuck Timmy. He's three years late, the little bastard doesn't deserve to play online.
2) Try finding a game in FiFA 08 now. Are the EA servers even up anymore? I think they got closed down two years after release.
3) Timmy also can't play CoD, he won't find any games, no one plays CoD anymore. He'll have to buy Modern Warfare 2 or Black Ops for that. *cue he gets a smack round the head for being daft "we already bought you that game timmy"*
:p
On February 18 2011 16:14 dc302 wrote:
so what does this mean for professionals? will the GSL and stuff still be in WoL?
We'll see upon release of the first expansion, but I presume the transition will be speedy, just like when SC2 retail came out.
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On February 18 2011 16:05 Decko wrote:
Expansions have never costed 60 dollars, and I almost guarantee this one won't cost 60 dollars either. It's the same formula that they've followed for years, there's really no news here, it's status quo. I'm perfectly fine with it, I just hope the expansions don't destroy the balance of the game. I just hope that one of them ends 4 gating in PvP. Otherwise the legacy of the void will leave a pretty cheesy legacy.
Edit: I think warcraft 2's expansion was preplanned before warcraft 2 was release, I think everyone is certain that Diablo2's expansion was preplanned as well. I remember having to install tons of data from the original Diablo 2 disc when the expansion was released.
Don't forget that they scrapped the Valkyrie in vanilla SC1 only to have it return in BW.
Also, the ending to the vanilla SC1 campaign directly foreshadowed the storyline for BW, so I think it safe to say that Blizzard was already planning a sequel/expansion when making SC1.
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On February 18 2011 16:14 dc302 wrote:
so what does this mean for professionals? will the GSL and stuff still be in WoL?
EVERYONE will move onto the next expansion pack once it is released. The professional scene will switch to each new expansion pack no matter what, especially since it will probably be plugging balance holes in the game.
The number of active players who won't switch will be an extremely small and negligible minority. The few people who won't switch are either very inactive or are financially incapable of affording the new expansions.
There won't be a "split" in the community because the vast majority community will already be playing the expansion pack, especially since the entire professional scene will switch.
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everyone on this forum writing here will ether buy the new expansion on day one or will not play for a while so seriously discussing how to keep WoL ladder alive isn't worth it in my opinion. Who would like to play an outdated game? ( not comparing to BW ofc).
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Just have the expansions be campaign only and all the new units be added to multiplayer?
Then again Blizzard is too greedy to do that...
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Honestly, what makes sense to me would be for Blizzard to release the three campaigns as standalone games, each with access to the same, complete multiplayer. It doesn't make sense that some who only wants to play the Protoss campaign has to pay more than someone who only cares about the Terran campaign, which would be the case if the latter two games are expansions.
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Who's honestly going to take anyone serious that's playing an outdated version of SC2?
It would be like someone claiming to be the king of Starcraft Vanilla (not talking about Brood War).
Starcraft Vanilla = no medics/firebats... that completely changes Bio TvZ lol No Darktemplar cheese... that alone is gamebreaking. Oh yeah and the Brood War expansion gave us lame 1 hatch lurker rush builds too >.<. I'm kidding I like lurkers too...
I have no idea what kind of updates will happen in the Starcraft 2 expansions, but it will most likely change the multiplayer mode a LOT so anyone sticking with Wings of Liberty will definitely be left behind.
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Brood War was planned before Starcraft was released. I think it was mentioned in the Starcraft Bible or something.
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If they didn't force you to buy the expansion pack to play an updated multiplayer, then no one would buy it. Kinda sucks, but that's how it is.
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Wow expansions are like $40. Probably will be $40.
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To sum up my thoughts/feelings as best as i can:
Expansion packs should expand upon a game, not make it irrelevant.
The clue is in the word "expansion pack" not "new game"
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My first thought is that this seems to be the most logical solution. I just hope that the competitive scene don't get fragmented across the different games.
Edit:
Separate point: Are people actually bitching about the fucking price of the game? I have already played hundreds of games, for a one time price of 700 NOK for the collectors edition. That means that I have payed the price of a chewing gum for each hour of gametime, and the price keeps decreasing.
God this entitlement culture is killing me.
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On February 18 2011 15:16 ProtossGirl wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 13:51 confusedcrib wrote:
To paraphrase iNcontroL: holy shit they're not fucking it all up, instead they're doing something obvious! What a great company! To me, obvious would be allowing everyone full access to Starcraft 2's multiplayer,and those who want to spend time on additional singleplayer can buy the expansions. With this method, anyone who wants to stay relevant is forced to pay out. Not sure why this is so hard for you to see.
How stupid can someone be? Bizzard wants money which is normal for a company. Why should you get a new multiplayer withput paying? You are nothing more than a slacker who wants everything for free... now leave me alone.
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While I dont really care for the separate ladders issue, since there's nothing new about it really, I cant but help feel that having to wait a few weeks for new maps(that are in the GSL) either means blizz wants to see how they fare or they are actually not planing on implementing them. The maps are already done pretty much so why would it take a few weeks to get them on there?
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I'm actually glad that they are doing it this way because it means that I won't have to buy the game as soon as it is released to get my fix of starcraft. The one problem with this method though could be that the community is split in half but I think as long as the pros move over the rest of us will follow like sheep.
So for blizzard to get the pros to move over they are probably going to switch all of their major tournaments over to HotS.
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The sense of self-entitlement some people have in this thread ... it's just astounding. Since when was it not standard for this to happen?
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Sounds fine to me, obviously if the competitive community wants to stay with the game they'll migrate accordingly. Same with Brood War's new ladder no?
This decision makes the most sense.
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I can not believe people are complaining about the cost of an expansion. I can not think of any other entertainment product that gives you so much value and time for you 50-60$ or whatever it will be.
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Everyone who says that separate ladders will split the community are dead wrong; EVERYONE will migrate to the newer versions, just like people did with Brood War.
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On February 18 2011 14:56 Seam wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 14:52 undyinglight wrote:
Do you guys think Wings of Liberty will still have much of a competitive scene post Heart of the Swarm. I think it would be interesting if the game lived on. Did normal Starcraft have a competitive scene post BW?
No, but the RoC (Warcraft 3) scene continued to grow and stayed competitive after the release of TFT. So, I wouldn't be too suprised to see the same happen here. Basically you will end up with split communities.
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Are people being intentionally dumb and forgetting that this is exactly what every expansion pack ever does for multiplayer?
The multiplayer ladders for each game are SEPARATE because expansion packs add new things, why people are complaining this leads me to believe that they're wearing the nostalgia goggles on a little too tightly, and are just simply jumping onto the Blizzard-hate bandwagon because that makes them cool.
I don't recall ever seeing Lurkers when I played vanilla SC after BW was released.
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On February 18 2011 17:13 ProtossGirl wrote:
To sum up my thoughts/feelings as best as i can:
Expansion packs should expand upon a game, not make it irrelevant.
The clue is in the word "expansion pack" not "new game"
Have you ever played an online RTS that had expansion packs? This isn't magic the gathering.
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On February 18 2011 17:51 Panicc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 15:16 ProtossGirl wrote:On February 18 2011 13:51 confusedcrib wrote:
To paraphrase iNcontroL: holy shit they're not fucking it all up, instead they're doing something obvious! What a great company! To me, obvious would be allowing everyone full access to Starcraft 2's multiplayer,and those who want to spend time on additional singleplayer can buy the expansions. With this method, anyone who wants to stay relevant is forced to pay out. Not sure why this is so hard for you to see. How stupid can someone be? Bizzard wants money which is normal for a company. Why should you get a new multiplayer withput paying? You are nothing more than a slacker who wants everything for free... now leave me alone.
hey here's an idea.. let them have a choice.. for those who dont buy expansions.. let them either choose to go ladder with only their expansion.. or let them face off against those with the expansions aswell... but ofc.. since you dont own the new expansion... you dont have the new units... have fun
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On February 18 2011 15:33 Xapti wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 15:24 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:
@Xapti
The multiplayer will be the same, just some balance and new units. Each combination isn't going to be different. If it's a true expansion then having LotV means you will have WoL+HotS+LotV in order to play LotV. So there will be at most 3 separate ladders. I am stating a fact that blizzard said the expansions would be standalone. I am not saying that they didn't change their minds. Like I said, the way the FAQ is written, it seems like they may have changed their minds. Aside from the FAQ, which is not clear, and is not even too reliable, where has it been said that they will not be standalone?
Where does it stated it IS standalone?
you still get your own WOL multiplayer with everything and other ppl move on.
they don't remove anything you know, they just add an extra portion wich you don't get if you don't buy the expansions.
could you play brood war without starcraft?
could you play the frozen throne without warcraft 3?
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I like that they keep the ladders separated. That's the way it worked in previous titles and it worked well. Fans of the classic game or nostalgic players had the "vanilla" game to mess around with; everyone else had the updated version to ladder on. Keep in mind that Blizzard doesn't have to support the then-outdated WoL any longer (just as they needn't have done with vanilla StarCraft or War3), but they did/do, which is a nice thing.
Also, lol @ at the sheer amount of pointless discussion going on in a mere 6 pages.
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I think a lot of casual players will stick to WoL because they don't want to spend $$$ for a campaign of race they don't like (most of the casual players don't like zerg as much as terran or toss) and some new lousy units. Two seperate sc2 ladders will hurt the online community.
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I'm just asking in Hots if the multiplayer will feature new units/mechanics in the ladder games ? If it doesn't there is no meaning in spliting the ladders or buying the expansion in general .
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On February 18 2011 20:55 RogerShah wrote:
I think a lot of casual players will stick to WoL because they don't want to spend $$$ for a campaign of race they don't like (most of the casual players don't like zerg as much as terran or toss) and some new lousy units. Two seperate sc2 ladders will hurt the online community.
No it will not ... .The casual players will play WoL . The competitive players will play HotS . If casual players want to become competitive they will just buy HotS . Maybe the custom games shouldn't be on a 2 diffrent ladders , but in 1 .
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On February 18 2011 12:57 chonkyfire wrote:
why wouldn't there be?
unless they don't plan on adding any new units...
"Although there will be a separate ladder for HotS, players will still be able to play the Wings of Liberty ladder without having, 'to deal with new units or balance problems or anything like that,' said Browder."
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On February 18 2011 20:28 LittLeD wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 14:56 Seam wrote:On February 18 2011 14:52 undyinglight wrote:
Do you guys think Wings of Liberty will still have much of a competitive scene post Heart of the Swarm. I think it would be interesting if the game lived on. Did normal Starcraft have a competitive scene post BW? No, but the RoC (Warcraft 3) scene continued to grow and stayed competitive after the release of TFT. So, I wouldn't be too suprised to see the same happen here. Basically you will end up with split communities.
Split community tend to indicate something split in the middle and not 99.9% vs 0.01%. A bunch of Russians, playing RoC and massing huntresses, isn't exactly a large part of the community.
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Blizzard will definately not sponsor tournaments running WoL to promote their new product so I think it will have little to no effect.
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On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
And you wont have to buy all 3, thats the point. If you dont want HotS you can still play WoL on ladder, its just a seperate ladder..... they aren't forcing you to buy anything
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On February 18 2011 16:07 ProtossGirl wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 15:54 Combine wrote:On February 18 2011 15:46 ProtossGirl wrote:On February 18 2011 15:33 AndAgain wrote:On February 18 2011 15:24 ProtossGirl wrote:
I dont understand why people would even consider supporting multiple ladders.
Fragment the community
Dead ladders left behind
Extra cost to participate
This is not a positive thing for any player. It's fucking positive for blizz balance sheet, but not for us.
Why are people supporting this? How is it possible to have 1 ladder for both games? I work full time, i'm not worried about paying the price they determine is suitable for the game i spend 1000's of hours upon. It just strikes me as daft that as a multiplayer community, everybody seems content with having dead ladders, and a game structure that places needless boundaries to access for its multiplayer features. in 3 years time, little timmy wants to play some starcraft 2 online, he buys the game.. hits find match, 20 minutes later still no player found . He tells his parents he needs the 2 expansions as well, he gets a smack round the head for being daft "we already bought you that game timmy" "but daaaad... i need to be playing on the only ladder still left alive by the odd corporate decisions to leave 2/3rd's of the game without a community" "no son, we're not letting you get dragged into this corporate scheme" "i'll go back to cod then... " By then there will be a battlechest with all the games bundled for a cheap price. Each game will probably go down in price as the next comes out. WoW has 12 million subs with three expansions to it. It's not the first game to have expansions, everyone knows how they work and they make it pretty apparent you need the later ones to be up with the current players. Shame WoW costs like $100 to get into now.
WoW has 3 expansions, and you dont have to buy all of them if you dont want, you can also buy them as you need them to advance in level.
WoW might cost $100 but you are getting 4 complete games for that. There is literally hundreds if not thousands of hours of content for each expansion, and expansions are nothing new.
Hell I remember having to pay FOR PATCHES. When I first bought Duke Nukem 3D I had to pay for the Plutonium pack, which was basically what we would consider a patch now, not an expansion by any standards, even those of the times. All it added was 2 new maps and updated bug fixes etc...... before the plutonium pack (which was 1.4 or 1.5 if i remember right) you could buy 1.3. When plutonium arrived, you could skip the 1.3 disc and just use the 1.5 disc. These were literally patches and you had to pay nearly the price of a full game for them....... they added vrirtually nothing new and were just bug fixes, yet we paid because it was what you had to do.
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On February 18 2011 21:07 raga4ka wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 20:55 RogerShah wrote:
I think a lot of casual players will stick to WoL because they don't want to spend $$$ for a campaign of race they don't like (most of the casual players don't like zerg as much as terran or toss) and some new lousy units. Two seperate sc2 ladders will hurt the online community. No it will not ... .The casual players will play WoL . The competitive players will play HotS . If casual players want to become competitive they will just buy HotS . Maybe the custom games shouldn't be on a 2 diffrent ladders , but in 1 .
But its in fact the attraction of casual players to visit SC2 related websites and watch streams which is a big part of the popularity of SC2. Look by example to HDStarcraft and Husky. If most of the WoL buyers for obvious reasons don't move on to HotS, HotS will never reach the popularity SC2 has right now. The HotS ladder will never be as big as the WoL ladder right is now.
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It's safe to say no Zergs will be playing WoL OLOLOL
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On February 18 2011 13:40 Turgid wrote:Historically, it hasn't been the case that the release of new ladders(or areas, in the case of WoW) has significantly cut into the playing population. WoW has actually gotten pretty expensive and their battle chest system is pretty bad(it never includes the most recent expansion) but I imagine some time after LoV is released the package you will be able to buy will include both expansions. But yes, historically, people have just bought the expansion and moved on. I remember playing a little bit of Vanilla hardcore D2(by choice) a couple years after the release of LoD and there being a fun little 10 person community. They all owned LoD they just wanted to play with the smaller community. edit: Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard... Yeah, how dare they keep the exact same system from every other game with expansions they've ever released.
it's possible that you don't need to buy the game, just some DLC.
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On February 18 2011 21:54 SpoR wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 13:40 Turgid wrote:Historically, it hasn't been the case that the release of new ladders(or areas, in the case of WoW) has significantly cut into the playing population. WoW has actually gotten pretty expensive and their battle chest system is pretty bad(it never includes the most recent expansion) but I imagine some time after LoV is released the package you will be able to buy will include both expansions. But yes, historically, people have just bought the expansion and moved on. I remember playing a little bit of Vanilla hardcore D2(by choice) a couple years after the release of LoD and there being a fun little 10 person community. They all owned LoD they just wanted to play with the smaller community. edit: On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard... Yeah, how dare they keep the exact same system from every other game with expansions they've ever released. it's possible that you don't need to buy the game, just some DLC.
Yeah, if blizz were to put out a dlc with the minimum requiered(units, maps, bugfixes etc) to play the hots multiplayer with an adjusted price tag that would be a genius move. It would definitely help in not watering down the player base by keeping people out who dont wanna pay for the single player but wanna move on to the hots multiplayer.
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yea this is the exact same thing they did for starcraft and warcraft 3, no surprise there.
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On February 18 2011 12:58 Spacekyod wrote:
I was curious how they were going to go about doing this, and i was hoping they wouldn't be creating a new ladder system. Though my only concern is, what does this mean exactly? If people on different ladders aren't able to play directly against eachother, then this will likely cut into the number of active people on each ladder and cut into wait times for games.
All serious players will be buying HOTS on its release day
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On February 18 2011 22:06 FarbrorAbavna wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 21:54 SpoR wrote:On February 18 2011 13:40 Turgid wrote:Historically, it hasn't been the case that the release of new ladders(or areas, in the case of WoW) has significantly cut into the playing population. WoW has actually gotten pretty expensive and their battle chest system is pretty bad(it never includes the most recent expansion) but I imagine some time after LoV is released the package you will be able to buy will include both expansions. But yes, historically, people have just bought the expansion and moved on. I remember playing a little bit of Vanilla hardcore D2(by choice) a couple years after the release of LoD and there being a fun little 10 person community. They all owned LoD they just wanted to play with the smaller community. edit: On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard... Yeah, how dare they keep the exact same system from every other game with expansions they've ever released. it's possible that you don't need to buy the game, just some DLC. Yeah, if blizz were to put out a dlc with the minimum requiered(units, maps, bugfixes etc) to play the hots multiplayer with an adjusted price tag that would be a genius move. It would definitely help in not watering down the player base by keeping people out who dont wanna pay for the single player but wanna move on to the hots multiplayer.
Personally i think this is a great idea.
I have a lot of casual friends who play only a couple of online games per week at most, i doubt any of them would want to shell out the cost of a full singleplayer expansion just to get their small amount of online gameplay in. I'm pretty sure for an adjusted pricetag more people would buy the "multiplayer pack".
I'm buying either way since i play a lot of sc2.. but it feels really shitty that im paying mostly for a singleplayer campaign, which in my opinion is a complete waste of development time for a game known purely for its online play.
EDIT:
omg, complete with the fact that there is no cross region play, it's going to make the game retardedly expensive to play to its full potential..
if only we could have features granted in 15 year old games.
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To the people who think this will split the community into two and harm the competitive scene: What the hell?
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I don't know how to feel about this, I mean eventually one of the games will become "the" Starcraft 2 (I'm guessing it will be HotS, barring any balance disasters). Since this game is such a spectator sport as well, it will feel strange for people to be watching tournaments/casts of HotS and then logging in to play on the WoL ladder. Though I guess most who are enough into SC2 to watch it will probably buy the expansions...
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They've done this for every game they're ever made with a ladder system, even Diablo II.
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Oh what the hell, I thought everything would be staying the same in the expansions as far as multiplayer and ladder were concerned. A different ladder is ridiculously unnecessary when they could make it so that WoL people could play with HotS people on the same ladder. I thought the expansions were purely campaign based, ugh desperate for more money...
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On February 18 2011 23:25 Phenny wrote:
Oh what the hell, I thought everything would be staying the same in the expansions as far as multiplayer and ladder were concerned. A different ladder is ridiculously unnecessary when they could make it so that WoL people could play with HotS people on the same ladder. I thought the expansions were purely campaign based, ugh desperate for more money...
I wonder how many buys sc2 for the single player vs those who gets it for online play. It makes completely sense to me.
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On February 18 2011 23:27 gakkgakk wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 23:25 Phenny wrote:
Oh what the hell, I thought everything would be staying the same in the expansions as far as multiplayer and ladder were concerned. A different ladder is ridiculously unnecessary when they could make it so that WoL people could play with HotS people on the same ladder. I thought the expansions were purely campaign based, ugh desperate for more money... I wonder how many buys sc2 for the single player vs those who gets it for online play. It makes completely sense to me.
Yeh it makes sense, I would buy it for single player but I think the overwhelming majority only play multiplayer.
It just sucks that all effort and rank playing on WoL is lost when HotS comes out >.<
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It's also a safety net if HoTS is so horribly imbalanced that tournaments can't use it at all, so I think it's probably the best option.
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i wanna know what will happen when all 3 expo's are released
will the UI for the expansions change? what if i want the zerg one instead of the toss one?
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On February 18 2011 23:40 optical630 wrote:i wanna know what will happen when all 3 expo's are released will the UI for the expansions change? what if i want the zerg one instead of the toss one?
In theory, I suppose we are supposed to be closer to reaching an equilibrium like we currently have with Brood War.
Also we may have lurkers >.>
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On February 18 2011 23:25 Phenny wrote:
Oh what the hell, I thought everything would be staying the same in the expansions as far as multiplayer and ladder were concerned. A different ladder is ridiculously unnecessary when they could make it so that WoL people could play with HotS people on the same ladder. I thought the expansions were purely campaign based, ugh desperate for more money...
There will also be more units in the multiplayer/different maps. How could you play those at the same time.
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On February 18 2011 23:51 Endorsed wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 23:25 Phenny wrote:
Oh what the hell, I thought everything would be staying the same in the expansions as far as multiplayer and ladder were concerned. A different ladder is ridiculously unnecessary when they could make it so that WoL people could play with HotS people on the same ladder. I thought the expansions were purely campaign based, ugh desperate for more money... There will also be more units in the multiplayer/different maps. How could you play those at the same time.
A change of the map pool or units wouldn't be HotS dependent though. They have the ability to do this already.
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On February 18 2011 23:35 thesideshow wrote:
It's also a safety net if HoTS is so horribly imbalanced that tournaments can't use it at all, so I think it's probably the best option.
I question if there are going to be any significant balance changes anyway. I think the new Blizzard team realised that changing only little things can have unforeseeable changes over time.
If there are new units however, they better be designed with the same thoughts the BroodWar guys had behind it. The medic for instance wasn't this super cool marketable unit, it was a very specific unit to get terran out of the static and defensive bunker play. I hope we don't just see cool units for the sake of looking cool.
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Just wondering what will it be of the tournament scene? we will get pro gamers specialized on a single ladder expansion? kinda strange imo and doesnt suit the organization we currently have, since i cant imagine top pro-gamers transitioning expansions because blizzard decided to split the game in pieces.
Would like it to be a single ladder for everyone so we dont get more balance discussions and comparisons between players that are top on each expansion for the rest of our lives.
Also attending to how deep and delicate it is to bring new patches into the current game, i can only imagine having to patch 3 different games looking for the best balance possible on each of them.
Peace.
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I don't see what else they could do besides have a separate ladder assuming it is going to add new multiplayer units.
On February 18 2011 23:57 Jayson X wrote:
I hope we don't just see cool units for the sake of looking cool.
Fortunately since they've already shown that they are willing to completely separate the single player from the multi player they are in a great position to not do this.
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I quite clearly remember when blizzard announced their 3 part strategy that they would only be selling single player content and that the multiplayer would be updated via patches to maintain a global ladder.
EDIT: I was wrong here is the original statement
source: http://pc.ign.com/articles/918/918895p1.html
+ Show Spoiler +Pardo explained that the multiplayer remains relatively unchanged; each StarCraft II game will have a fully functioning multiplayer suite with all three races playable. "[In] the shipping product, all three races will be fully featured and balanced in gameplay and also in content," he said. We asked whether that meant the multiplayer suite in each game would be exactly the same, and he said, "More than likely, the successive products will add multiplayer content; we haven't decided right now what that is." That brought up the question as to how multiplayer would work if some players only buy the first game while others only buy the second or third games. He said that they haven't made any determinations yet as to how that would work.
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On February 18 2011 21:31 emythrel wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 16:07 ProtossGirl wrote:On February 18 2011 15:54 Combine wrote:On February 18 2011 15:46 ProtossGirl wrote:On February 18 2011 15:33 AndAgain wrote:On February 18 2011 15:24 ProtossGirl wrote:
I dont understand why people would even consider supporting multiple ladders.
Fragment the community
Dead ladders left behind
Extra cost to participate
This is not a positive thing for any player. It's fucking positive for blizz balance sheet, but not for us.
Why are people supporting this? How is it possible to have 1 ladder for both games? I work full time, i'm not worried about paying the price they determine is suitable for the game i spend 1000's of hours upon. It just strikes me as daft that as a multiplayer community, everybody seems content with having dead ladders, and a game structure that places needless boundaries to access for its multiplayer features. in 3 years time, little timmy wants to play some starcraft 2 online, he buys the game.. hits find match, 20 minutes later still no player found . He tells his parents he needs the 2 expansions as well, he gets a smack round the head for being daft "we already bought you that game timmy" "but daaaad... i need to be playing on the only ladder still left alive by the odd corporate decisions to leave 2/3rd's of the game without a community" "no son, we're not letting you get dragged into this corporate scheme" "i'll go back to cod then... " By then there will be a battlechest with all the games bundled for a cheap price. Each game will probably go down in price as the next comes out. WoW has 12 million subs with three expansions to it. It's not the first game to have expansions, everyone knows how they work and they make it pretty apparent you need the later ones to be up with the current players. Shame WoW costs like $100 to get into now. WoW has 3 expansions, and you dont have to buy all of them if you dont want, you can also buy them as you need them to advance in level. WoW might cost $100 but you are getting 4 complete games for that. There is literally hundreds if not thousands of hours of content for each expansion, and expansions are nothing new. Hell I remember having to pay FOR PATCHES. When I first bought Duke Nukem 3D I had to pay for the Plutonium pack, which was basically what we would consider a patch now, not an expansion by any standards, even those of the times. All it added was 2 new maps and updated bug fixes etc...... before the plutonium pack (which was 1.4 or 1.5 if i remember right) you could buy 1.3. When plutonium arrived, you could skip the 1.3 disc and just use the 1.5 disc. These were literally patches and you had to pay nearly the price of a full game for them....... they added vrirtually nothing new and were just bug fixes, yet we paid because it was what you had to do.
Err, what? Plutonium PAK added new weapons, maps, and the alien queen with three tits.
As for Blizz, there really anything out there to indicate the game will be priced at higher than 40$. They seem to be treating it like every Blizz developed expansion pack (BW, TFT, LOD). New content, new maps, new campaign, separate ladder. It seems as if anything Blizz does will get people giving them static.
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I wonder why people are so suprised at this news. This is normal. next?
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I don't understand why Blizzard is taking heat for this. The singleplayer campaign is an important product for Blizzard but so is the multiplayer. Considering we're basically getting two games when we buy HotS, it would be crazy for Blizzard to give the multiplayer game away for free (i.e. by letting WoL owners play on the HotS ladder without purchasing HotS). They'll keep supporting the WoL ladder so nobody is forced to buy HotS if they want to keep playing SC2, but if you want the new units, etc. you'll have to pay up. Seems fair to me. Besides, we all knew it would be like this years ago when SC2 was announced as a trilogy.
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On February 18 2011 12:59 LoLAdriankat wrote:
Hasn't it always been like this for Blizzard RTS? Not really surprising.
That`s what I was thinking too. I thought it was fairly obvious and I agree with bob. I will fight to the end to be the last remaining player! O;
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releasing expansions on a yearly basis which will most likely drasticly alter the metagame seems kinda detrimental to having SC2 remain viable as an e-sports game. I think they should make all the new units availble on the multi ladder without having to purchase HOTS and force people to opt out of the new ladder. Probably not the best from a business perspective immediately but they should be thinking a little more long term imo.
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I remember very clearly (but I dont have the source at hand), during blizzcon or something, blizzard actually told the crowd that SC2 was becoming insanely huge, and they ASKED the crowd if they prefered to wait longer and have a kinda shrinked version of the original story in only 1 game, or divide the entire huge thing into 3 seperate games.
The crowd cheered at the idea of 3 games.
Following that, there was some information about how people wouldn't need to buy everything, they're not supposed to be expansions etc etc. Some interviews even asked blizzard what they planned on doing for the other 2 games to make them more worth buying since, technically, if we buy the first one we can play online with anyone and we shouldn't need to buy the other games to have all the same stuff. It was stated that the main point of the 3 games instead of 1 was mainly for campaign.
Unless what they meant was "you can still play WoL all alone there will be 2 ladders once HotS comes out".
I was expecting new units and maps to come in a big patch, for everyone, once HotS comes out. Buying the game would give us the second part of the campaign and probably some new game mode or whatever mainly for single player or a little extra custom something online for HotS exclusively.
I personally don't mind, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna buy them all anyways, I liked the campaign in WoL and there's enough content to make it worth buying (if you compare to most single player games that come out, they're usually more expensive with less play time). I just think it's lame to change their original plans like that.
It's like saying they're making an awesome stealth game based on starcraft, show off some great stuff, images and shit then suddenly throw everything out the window...ow..ow..... oh wait.
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On February 19 2011 00:05 Escapist wrote:
Just wondering what will it be of the tournament scene? we will get pro gamers specialized on a single ladder expansion? kinda strange imo and doesnt suit the organization we currently have, since i cant imagine top pro-gamers transitioning expansions because blizzard decided to split the game in pieces.
Would like it to be a single ladder for everyone so we dont get more balance discussions and comparisons between players that are top on each expansion for the rest of our lives.
Also attending to how deep and delicate it is to bring new patches into the current game, i can only imagine having to patch 3 different games looking for the best balance possible on each of them.
Peace.
People are going to move on to the expansion pack regardless of how "balanced" the content is, because:
1) Balance should always take a back seat to a diversity of game strategies. And if you don't believe that, you can go back to November of 2003 and play Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, where all four races were essentially balanced around their win-all caster/Dryad/Ghoul armies. Adding new units has increased the amount of diversity in every Blizzard strategy game because the unit additions are typically used to address race weaknesses and plug holes rather than redefine the way the race plays (and if Medics give Marines completely new life in matchups such as Brood War's Terran vs. Zerg, then it's a bonus). Half a dozen new units, new maps, and new strategic points are not going to break the game and, if they do, Blizzard will have ample time during the beta to make sure they simply bend the matchup.
2) "Splitting the community" only happens in new games with overhauls of the game engine itself. It did not happen in Brood War. It did not happen with The Frozen Throne. This is ridiculous. A major portion of a Western Starcraft community that made a seamless transition from Brood War to Starcraft II is now concerned that the community may be split in two by an expansion pack? Come on. The only time communities get "split" is when a new game engine is introduced or modified, i.e. "all the little nuances and glitches in Super Smash Brothers: Melee are supplanted by a Super Smash Brothers: Brawl that didn't replace those nuances and glitches with additional interesting game mechanics".
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Even if it's standard to do this, it still sucks for me who doesn't give a crap about single player to actually buy 2 more full games just to be able to keep up with the ladder and online gaming. Because when the last part of the triology comes out I will have two useless games that I could play ~ 1,5 years or how long it will be between the games. And when part 3 is out, will that the be it? Can we then stop waiting for other expansions we have to pay up for and just focusing on many many years of gaming as with BW?
Also, they should just shut down WoL ladder so people won't be like "WoL is better than HotS!!!" that would prevent the scene from splitting up as in other big games like Counter-Strike, Call Of Duty etc.
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The most apparent problem for me, which has been stated a few times already in this thread, is that not only one expansion is to be released, but two.
having two ladders when the first expansion is released is probably ok, but when the second expansion is released, that would make three ladders which is too many in my opinion. That's even assuming the second expansion requires the first expansion as well as the vanilla game. In the worst case scenario (neither WoL nor HotS required for LotV multiplayer) seven ladders would be used for the seven possible combinations of games you can have installed.
Also, the majority of players, especially good players, will be playing on the ladder with both expansions used (I sure hope that you'll be able to apply both expansions at the same time). If you were to get into Starcraft 2 at that point, you would pretty much feel obligated to buy both expansions to play on a decent ladder. This would probably make a quite high initial cost which in the worst case will scare people away from playing at all. I do wish, among with many others around here I guess, that as many people as possible were to pick up and play SC2.
I can't really think of other RTS games that have released more than one expansion, but even if they exist I don't think it's easy to do it without these drawbacks. Especially not for a highly established game like SC2. I can't really see WoW as a good example since that's an MMORPG, and those are generally huge money drains in my opinion anyway. I don't say that Blizzard have done anything horribly bad. It was kind of expected to have just an additional ladder for the first expansion like this. What I'm stating is that they'll probably run into some hurdles as they release the second expansion. I'm interested to see if they'll find a way around the problems, assuming they care for more than solely the income from sold LotV-copies.
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This is not a surprise at all, but I hope they do a good enough job on the expansions to make upgrading the natural choice. I don't want "HotS vs LotV" to be the next "BW vs SC2".
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In relation to the accusations of Blizzard money grabbing: look at the service, support and sponsorships they are providing for a game which they generate absolutely no subscription income from. It is completly unparalleled in the gaming industry.
"Haters gonna hate" springs to mind.
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Why is this a surprise? Why are people going crazy over this? This is how they've always done it. It's going to be $40 for the expansion and they will split the ladder.
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I dont understand people saying you should be able to ladder without expansions with those who have it. Do you WANT to play vs a player who can make units u dont even have? Thats retarded.
This is like any other game, an expansion is realesed and u need it to stay relevant. It's like that in ANY game.
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You buy the expansion and original, you get both. You buy the expansion, you can't play without the original. You buy the original, you can't play the expansion. That's how it has always been done.
If you want to be professional, you play the most updated version, or the most balanced version. That will be decided once the expansion(s) are up.
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On February 18 2011 21:54 SpoR wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 13:40 Turgid wrote:Historically, it hasn't been the case that the release of new ladders(or areas, in the case of WoW) has significantly cut into the playing population. WoW has actually gotten pretty expensive and their battle chest system is pretty bad(it never includes the most recent expansion) but I imagine some time after LoV is released the package you will be able to buy will include both expansions. But yes, historically, people have just bought the expansion and moved on. I remember playing a little bit of Vanilla hardcore D2(by choice) a couple years after the release of LoD and there being a fun little 10 person community. They all owned LoD they just wanted to play with the smaller community. edit: On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard... Yeah, how dare they keep the exact same system from every other game with expansions they've ever released. it's possible that you don't need to buy the game, just some DLC.
I'm sure it'll cost the same either way. I'm not too worried about it, even if it turns out to be $60. I'm just kind of perusing this thread with bewilderment that there were people who are somehow surprised or angry that this is what's happening, considering that there has never been anything different. Imagine if I went to the same restaurant 9 times in a row, and I disliked the food each time. Now imagine I came back to that same restaurant a tenth time, disliked the food for the exact same reasons, and in the exact same way, but this time, I screamed about the restaurant's new ownership. Bobby Kotick ruined my beef flambe! How insane would that be?
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Just have the expansions be campaign only and all the new units be added to multiplayer?
Then again Blizzard is too greedy to do that...
Do you really expect a "non-greedy" company to do that? Not many people would buy the game just for the campaign.
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I think it will have seperate ladder just like starcraft 1/ broodwar...Just cause a new game is released doesnt make it fair to whipe the old ladder for players who dont want to buy the new game.
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Full ladder with both are leading. Really? Did any of you voting that thought that through?
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On February 19 2011 00:05 Escapist wrote:
Just wondering what will it be of the tournament scene? we will get pro gamers specialized on a single ladder expansion? kinda strange imo and doesnt suit the organization we currently have, since i cant imagine top pro-gamers transitioning expansions because blizzard decided to split the game in pieces.
Would like it to be a single ladder for everyone so we dont get more balance discussions and comparisons between players that are top on each expansion for the rest of our lives.
Also attending to how deep and delicate it is to bring new patches into the current game, i can only imagine having to patch 3 different games looking for the best balance possible on each of them.
Peace.
It'll be handled by the community the same way it is for every single game with an expansion pack... everyone will move onto the latest version of the game.
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Seperate ladder makes sense to me. They can't simply remove the ladder from the original game which people already paid for, but the game will change so much with an expo that you can't compare the two any more.
On February 19 2011 05:40 Ownos wrote:
Full ladder with both are leading. Really? Did any of you voting that thought that through?
I have to ask based on your name, you didn't happen to play an old Half Life mod called Natural Selection did you? It was basically Starcraft meets FPS.
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Mods pls bann users for insulting blizzard...
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it worked in the past.... it'll work now....
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WTF
Does it mean when the Hots release, we still need to buy it for new unite in ladder and 1v1???
I through when they said that the expandsions will only have single player, and Wol will have free update. isn't that what they said???!!!!!
I dont care if I will have spent $180 for 3 expandsion. But I do care if Blizzard eat their own word.
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On February 19 2011 06:22 miDnight_SC wrote:
I through when they said that the expandsions will only have single player, and Wol will have free update. isn't that what they said???!!!!!
Yes.
Dumb move. I smell activision behind this.
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On February 19 2011 06:22 miDnight_SC wrote:
WTF
Does it mean when the Hots release, we still need to buy it for new unite in ladder and 1v1???
I through when they said that the expandsions will only have single player, and Wol will have free update. isn't that what they said???!!!!!
I dont care if I will have spent $180 for 3 expandsion. But I do care if Blizzard eat their own word.
Well, I don't think they've ever actually said that, and they've never done once in the past. It wouldn't make sense for them in a business perspective, since most people see the multi-player as the more valuable aspect in the long run.
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On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
I would buy HoTS anyway, since I main zerg. But I'm not sure I want LotV, since I really dislike playing protoss. The problem is that if I want to keep playing ladder with any meaningful amount of people and stuff.
I accept this if even people who DIDN'T buy the expansion can still ladder there.
???? I just don't understand. If there's any new units or changes to multiplayer how are they not going to have separate ladders? It wouldn't be fair to do it any other way. Honestly people complain about everything Blizzard does. This doesn't even make sense.
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This is really said considering blizzard is making this more likely for money rather than anything else, they should balance this game out better rather then leaving this game with not as great balance as it should be and adding another expansion probably 60$ again for another game as it looks. Forcing most pro gamers into buying expansion and most fans that follow the current game because everybody will probably move on, unless there is something I'm not aware of like HotS being just separate campaign. So it will be a matter of time as everybody moves on from this game to another facing more problems, especially on higher level with people trying to adapt to the new units and get used to it. For me it just seems like it goes down the toilet and blizzard just makes more money.
Ftw
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"Dustin also stated that there are plans to release a bunch of new maps for the multiplayer experience that will address a lot of issues that fans have raised with the current map pool. These maps, he said, will hopefully be added within the next few weeks. "
This is very exciting^^ Even though I'm a Terran and benefit from many of the current maps, I just want something new already.
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wtf they clearly stated before the players in WoL would experience the same as HotS
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On February 19 2011 06:36 Leeoku wrote:
wtf they clearly stated before the players in WoL would experience the same as HotS
Then there is no need for HotS at all.
1. think
2. post
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On February 19 2011 05:31 Yoshi Kirishima wrote:Show nested quote +
Just have the expansions be campaign only and all the new units be added to multiplayer?
Then again Blizzard is too greedy to do that...
Do you really expect a "non-greedy" company to do that? Not many people would buy the game just for the campaign.
Relic basically did it with Dawn of War 2. When Chaos Rising was released, owners of the original got the new units for the original races, they just missed out on 1 new race and the campaign.
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On February 19 2011 03:29 Turgid wrote:Show nested quote +On February 18 2011 21:54 SpoR wrote:On February 18 2011 13:40 Turgid wrote:Historically, it hasn't been the case that the release of new ladders(or areas, in the case of WoW) has significantly cut into the playing population. WoW has actually gotten pretty expensive and their battle chest system is pretty bad(it never includes the most recent expansion) but I imagine some time after LoV is released the package you will be able to buy will include both expansions. But yes, historically, people have just bought the expansion and moved on. I remember playing a little bit of Vanilla hardcore D2(by choice) a couple years after the release of LoD and there being a fun little 10 person community. They all owned LoD they just wanted to play with the smaller community. edit: On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard... Yeah, how dare they keep the exact same system from every other game with expansions they've ever released. it's possible that you don't need to buy the game, just some DLC. I'm sure it'll cost the same either way. I'm not too worried about it, even if it turns out to be $60. I'm just kind of perusing this thread with bewilderment that there were people who are somehow surprised or angry that this is what's happening, considering that there has never been anything different. Imagine if I went to the same restaurant 9 times in a row, and I disliked the food each time. Now imagine I came back to that same restaurant a tenth time, disliked the food for the exact same reasons, and in the exact same way, but this time, I screamed about the restaurant's new ownership. Bobby Kotick ruined my beef flambe! How insane would that be?
The primary reason for the complaints is because of the competition. More and more we're seeing PC games move away from the traditional $50/60 retail price. Steam for example constantly has games on sale for $30 or less, and other RTS games like Dawn of War 2 use standalone expansions which new players can buy and be up-to-date. DoW2 is also pretty cheap as well (retailed for $40, now the price is down to $30 with the first expansion costing $20). I can imagine that it might be harder to get money-conscious friends to buy SC2 over DoW2 simply because of the price. You can buy the latest DoW2 expansion for $30 and be completely caught up without having to buy anything else, whereas a person new to SC2 will have to spend at least $140 to be up-to-date once the expansions come out, and that's not even counting the microtransactions and whatever extra fees are put in.
The way PC games are priced is changing with the times, yet Blizzard is not, and that's why people are no longer all that happy with Blizzard sticking to their price model.
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On February 18 2011 15:33 DeltruS wrote:
I can't believe people are complaining about the community being fractured. EVERYONE will be on HoTS servers, just like with games like WoW. The expansion wont cost much and anyone who is on TL will buy it.
Ok, if its going to be like you say, an expansion. Than I change my stance 100%. Yes the competitive community will switch to HoTS. But, if it ends up being 3 seperate full priced games, each with seperate ladders than Im not ok with that. But I really hope and thnk itll be like you say.
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I can't imagine a reason why they would not have a new separate ladder. I assume people must either be misunderstanding the situation, or just haven't thought it through.
Edit: Brood War and The Frozen Throne are pretty good examples of this system.
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Did people not actually read the full GamesOnNet interview (click the link at the bottom of the GosuGamers re-post to go to it)? Dustin Browder made it pretty clear that there would be separate, fully-functioning ladders for each, just like how there were for SC1/BW and WC3/TFT.
I'm not even sure why there's a poll, considering the poll was answered by Browder. Here's what everyone's looking for:
games.on.net: Blizzard is no doubt ramping up development on Heart of the Swarm. Can you clarify for us how players of Wings of Liberty will be affected by the changes, especially in the multiplayer arena - if they don't purchase the next installment of the game, will they be ranked separately so as not to cause balance issues with any new units, for example?
Dustin: Woo! Yes, this is something we’ve dealt with a couple of times before, we had this problem in Brood War, we had this problem in Warcraft III and then Frozen Throne. Our current plan is to use the same solution we had for those products. There will be separate ladders, if you choose not to upgrade and continue forward with Heart of the Swarm that’s totally your option, your ladder will still work and you’ll be matched against people who are playing the same game that you’ll be playing. We’ll still be watching the balance for you in that area and making sure you’re having a balanced experience, we’ll still be rolling new maps to that part of the game, so it will continue forward like any other Blizzard product. Those of us who do come forward to Heart of the Swarm will have their own ladders, their own maps, their own ranking, all of that stuff. It’ll effectively split off - if you come with us, you’ll be playing the new stuff, if you don’t decide to come with us that’s totally cool, we’ll keep you with the old stuff and you won’t have to deal with new units or balance problems or anything like that.
I get that Blizzard haters will be Blizzard haters, but is it so much to ask that people actually know what they're talking about?
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Did people not actually read the full GamesOnNet interview (click the link at the bottom of the GosuGamers re-post to go to it)? Dustin Browder made it pretty clear that there would be separate, fully-functioning ladders for each, just like how there were for SC1/BW and WC3/TFT.
I'm not even sure why there's a poll, considering the poll was answered by Browder. Here's what everyone's looking for:
games.on.net: Blizzard is no doubt ramping up development on Heart of the Swarm. Can you clarify for us how players of Wings of Liberty will be affected by the changes, especially in the multiplayer arena - if they don't purchase the next installment of the game, will they be ranked separately so as not to cause balance issues with any new units, for example?
Dustin: Woo! Yes, this is something we’ve dealt with a couple of times before, we had this problem in Brood War, we had this problem in Warcraft III and then Frozen Throne. Our current plan is to use the same solution we had for those products. There will be separate ladders, if you choose not to upgrade and continue forward with Heart of the Swarm that’s totally your option, your ladder will still work and you’ll be matched against people who are playing the same game that you’ll be playing. We’ll still be watching the balance for you in that area and making sure you’re having a balanced experience, we’ll still be rolling new maps to that part of the game, so it will continue forward like any other Blizzard product. Those of us who do come forward to Heart of the Swarm will have their own ladders, their own maps, their own ranking, all of that stuff. It’ll effectively split off - if you come with us, you’ll be playing the new stuff, if you don’t decide to come with us that’s totally cool, we’ll keep you with the old stuff and you won’t have to deal with new units or balance problems or anything like that.
I get that Blizzard haters will be Blizzard haters, but is it so much to ask that people actually know what they're talking about?
Haha I guess some people just get too exited ^_^; and don't read clearly or just love TL so much they wanna post here first to find out!
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Well, at least we have a fallback plan in case the new units just totally shit on the game in heart of the swarm
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On February 19 2011 07:14 Spawkuring wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2011 03:29 Turgid wrote:On February 18 2011 21:54 SpoR wrote:On February 18 2011 13:40 Turgid wrote:Historically, it hasn't been the case that the release of new ladders(or areas, in the case of WoW) has significantly cut into the playing population. WoW has actually gotten pretty expensive and their battle chest system is pretty bad(it never includes the most recent expansion) but I imagine some time after LoV is released the package you will be able to buy will include both expansions. But yes, historically, people have just bought the expansion and moved on. I remember playing a little bit of Vanilla hardcore D2(by choice) a couple years after the release of LoD and there being a fun little 10 person community. They all owned LoD they just wanted to play with the smaller community. edit: On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard... Yeah, how dare they keep the exact same system from every other game with expansions they've ever released. it's possible that you don't need to buy the game, just some DLC. I'm sure it'll cost the same either way. I'm not too worried about it, even if it turns out to be $60. I'm just kind of perusing this thread with bewilderment that there were people who are somehow surprised or angry that this is what's happening, considering that there has never been anything different. Imagine if I went to the same restaurant 9 times in a row, and I disliked the food each time. Now imagine I came back to that same restaurant a tenth time, disliked the food for the exact same reasons, and in the exact same way, but this time, I screamed about the restaurant's new ownership. Bobby Kotick ruined my beef flambe! How insane would that be? The primary reason for the complaints is because of the competition. More and more we're seeing PC games move away from the traditional $50/60 retail price. Steam for example constantly has games on sale for $30 or less, and other RTS games like Dawn of War 2 use standalone expansions which new players can buy and be up-to-date. DoW2 is also pretty cheap as well (retailed for $40, now the price is down to $30 with the first expansion costing $20). I can imagine that it might be harder to get money-conscious friends to buy SC2 over DoW2 simply because of the price. You can buy the latest DoW2 expansion for $30 and be completely caught up without having to buy anything else, whereas a person new to SC2 will have to spend at least $140 to be up-to-date once the expansions come out, and that's not even counting the microtransactions and whatever extra fees are put in. The way PC games are priced is changing with the times, yet Blizzard is not, and that's why people are no longer all that happy with Blizzard sticking to their price model.
? I'm not sure what you're talking about. If anything prices on PC games are going UP. Everything is moving to $60. DOW2 was not $40 at release. It was $50. Expansions being $30 is business as usually, nothing special.
EDIT: Examples: Dead Space 2, Bulletstorm, Dragon Age 2, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution are $60. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and Total War: Shogun 2 are $50. There are almost no AAA titles less than $50.
And why are you comparing Steam sales to MSRP?
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From the esports perspective, it would be ideal to patch the WoL ladder to include any new units/mechanics/balance introduced in HotS, but require people to buy the new game for the campaign. This way the ladder maintains continuity and fairness.
The alternative is to offer a discounted price for people that already have WoL, or have a bunch of people skip HotS and just get LotV, because of the anticipated THIRD sc2 ladder.
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Why are people surprised at this? Just look how Blizzard has done their games/expansions in the past.
And yes it WILL split the community between noobs and serious players because I can guarantee every single serious player will buy HoTS on release day and be laddering on the first instance they have a chance.
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This makes sense if they choose to add units for competitive play each expansion. It will be especially interesting because people can choose which ladder they prefer... but idk how this will work for tournaments. IMO, it should just be all one conjoined ladder. Making them separate creates a world of problems.
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As long as I can transfer my portraits over from WoL into HoTS without having to mindlessly grind all that "hard work" and "effort" I'll be pretty happy
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On February 19 2011 16:31 SoulWager wrote:
From the esports perspective, it would be ideal to patch the WoL ladder to include any new units/mechanics/balance introduced in HotS, but require people to buy the new game for the campaign. This way the ladder maintains continuity and fairness.
The alternative is to offer a discounted price for people that already have WoL, or have a bunch of people skip HotS and just get LotV, because of the anticipated THIRD sc2 ladder.
Or maybe Im crazy , just buy the fucking addon like you should ?
What the hell is wrong with paying 50euro ? Stop slacking guys.... Show respect to blizzard, they are a company who needs money and not your stupid whining. Why should the multiplayer be free? Its the sole reason 90% of the people are playing starcraft 2. Sometimes i dont believe in mankind anymore...
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Didn't we know this already? I'm sure it has been stated before.
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I never really like having 3 parts to SC2. I would have paid more for 1 enlarged game that has a more solid campaign. The WoL campaign was a bit cheesy with the money-collecting pirate theme, had too many filler stages, and the plot didn't compared to SC1 much. Having separate ladders for the other two parts will dilute the players pool. Successful "professional" leagues based on the different parts will be fragmented as well just like Brood War is to SC2 WoL from GOM/Blizzard's current point of view.
It wouldn't be good for fans of pro players if their pro players move around to the different parts of SC2. Just one spaghetti mess imo...and if Blizzard makes expansions...blah...not good for SC2 esports having so many games over a relatively short period of time.
(I like the SC2 WoL on-line game: good updated graphics, accessibility, content and features, better on-line connectivity)
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On February 19 2011 23:33 Starp wrote:
It wouldn't be good for fans of pro players if their pro players move around to the different parts of SC2. Just one spaghetti mess imo...and if Blizzard makes expansions...blah...not good for SC2 esports having so many games over a relatively short period of time.
(I like the SC2 WoL on-line game: good updated graphics, accessibility, content and features, better on-line connectivity)
Agree. With Brood War it was okey because then it was just one expansion which was excited, but now it's like "okey WoL is temporary till HotS comes out and then HotS will be temporary and a middle destination till we are at expansion 3 and from there we can play years of sc2 without thinking and waiting on expansions and all the new units to come.
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People think to much... Dont you think that everyone and their mother is going to play the newest expansion? Of course they do..... Nobody will play the old ones , who plays starcraft 2 because of the competition. I dont know what the talk here is anygood. The few players who are still playing the old ones are nothing but players who dont play sc2 seriosly
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his is good because if the HOTS expo isn't balanced when it comes out then E-sports can contiue on WOL until HOTS is balanced.
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On February 19 2011 06:24 Striding Strider wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2011 06:22 miDnight_SC wrote:
I through when they said that the expandsions will only have single player, and Wol will have free update. isn't that what they said???!!!!! Yes. Dumb move. I smell activision behind this.
ok, please quote the source of that statement cause i think you ppl are either misunderstanding or just making stuff up now.
have they EVER done that in their previous game? the awnser is no.
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On February 19 2011 22:34 Panicc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2011 16:31 SoulWager wrote:
From the esports perspective, it would be ideal to patch the WoL ladder to include any new units/mechanics/balance introduced in HotS, but require people to buy the new game for the campaign. This way the ladder maintains continuity and fairness.
The alternative is to offer a discounted price for people that already have WoL, or have a bunch of people skip HotS and just get LotV, because of the anticipated THIRD sc2 ladder. Or maybe Im crazy , just buy the fucking addon like you should ? What the hell is wrong with paying 50euro ? Stop slacking guys.... Show respect to blizzard, they are a company who needs money and not your stupid whining. Why should the multiplayer be free? Its the sole reason 90% of the people are playing starcraft 2. Sometimes i dont believe in mankind anymore...
I probably will buy the expansion, that has nothing to do with whether a second ladder will be good or bad for SC2 getting recognition as esports. The way they should be trying to sell HotS is to make the campaign compelling enough to be worth the money, adding units and splitting the ladder means you just have more games competing for attention from tournaments and sponsors. Just like BW vs WoL in Korea.
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On February 19 2011 16:10 ZlaSHeR wrote:
Well, at least we have a fallback plan in case the new units just totally shit on the game in heart of the swarm
and 2 to fall back on when LotV comes out
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With the regional split of the player base, I'm sure the old WoL Ladder will become very empty after some month and everyone who wants to play competitive will be forced to buy the expansion.
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This worries me :/
Having multiple ladders will split the player base increasing wait times for games, as well as effecting the game in other detrimental ways.
Wouldn't a better idea be to make it so the multiplayer experience is the same across all three games, allowing the use of a singular ladder. They could put some other kinds of restrictions on it to encourage people to buy the new game. Obviously you would have to pay for the game to get access to the single player campaign, but some other restrictions perhaps on custom games e.g. you can't play a custom game with someone who has the expansion installed or something like that?
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On February 20 2011 01:50 Karn3 wrote:
This worries me :/
Having multiple ladders will split the player base increasing wait times for games, as well as effecting the game in other detrimental ways.
Wouldn't a better idea be to make it so the multiplayer experience is the same across all three games, allowing the use of a singular ladder. They could put some other kinds of restrictions on it to encourage people to buy the new game. Obviously you would have to pay for the game to get access to the single player campaign, but some other restrictions perhaps on custom games e.g. you can't play a custom game with someone who has the expansion installed or something like that?
People will be playing the new game. It won't be splitting any player base. The only possible way it will do that is if Pros play an older game. They are adding new units each expansion and other possible things. It's exactly the same as War3 and SC1. This is always how it was going to work. Nothing new.
Guess incontrol was 100% correct in latest SotG.
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On February 20 2011 01:50 Karn3 wrote:
This worries me :/
Having multiple ladders will split the player base increasing wait times for games, as well as effecting the game in other detrimental ways.
Wouldn't a better idea be to make it so the multiplayer experience is the same across all three games, allowing the use of a singular ladder. They could put some other kinds of restrictions on it to encourage people to buy the new game. Obviously you would have to pay for the game to get access to the single player campaign, but some other restrictions perhaps on custom games e.g. you can't play a custom game with someone who has the expansion installed or something like that?
You couldn't be more wrong.
Splitting the ladder 99% to 1% is fine. The competitive scene and every "hobby" player caring enough about the game to still play it at that point will migrate to the new ladder. And then in addition to 99% of the existing fanbase, you get a ton of new and returning players who will buy HotS. Some will do so for the SP and will try out the MP, some will want to see the new additions to the MP.
If anything, it'll be a rejuvenation for the ladder. You guys need to think this stuff through properly before posting, I swear to God.
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it doesnot surprise me at all.
if u see the other games, it is the same.
i dont think it is possible haveing a ladder for two different games.
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i was under the impression that the expansions would just be single player campaign upgrades and that multiplayer would be patched to the WoL players.. kind of mad about this.
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On February 20 2011 01:20 Assirra wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2011 06:24 Striding Strider wrote:On February 19 2011 06:22 miDnight_SC wrote:
I through when they said that the expandsions will only have single player, and Wol will have free update. isn't that what they said???!!!!! Yes. Dumb move. I smell activision behind this. ok, please quote the source of that statement cause i think you ppl are either misunderstanding or just making stuff up now. have they EVER done that in their previous game? the awnser is no.
I distinctly remember Blizzard saying "You will only need one of the three games to play online, the multiplayer updates will be free.", but I can't for the life of me find any source for that. My guess is that they've been intentionally vague so they could later claim they didn't mean it the way they did. Back then I already thought that this would be too good to be true.
Forcing people to buy three full games to play online sucks quite a bit (And there is a big difference between one full game and an expansion and three full(y priced) games, isn't there?).
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I don't mind having 3 different ladders but I am confused because they said before you just buy any of the three expansions and you get the multiplayer and the other 2 expansions are just single player. I guess that is different. With this new information I must ask, are the 3 expansions going to be standalone expansions like they were announced? This new information hints towards the expansions not being standalone.
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They should do what RELIC do, and patch WoL multiplayer up to HotS...
But no one wants to play the poopy campaign do they... $_$
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On February 20 2011 03:13 3Form wrote:
They should do what RELIC do, and patch WoL multiplayer up to HotS...
But no one wants to play the poopy campaign do they... $_$
hey, i wanna squander my money on hollywood-style campaign and scream like a schoolgirl at the cutscene cinematics...
this is just in my wishlist that never comes true, but i wish blizzard allows u to just buy one of the expansion packs to play online instead of getting all 3.
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well this is a confirmation that the multiplayer will get content added. Not that something changes for me as i buy the game for the singleplayer :p.
PS: they said at the beginning that you'll only need one copy of the game to go for the multiplayer, but since they had to spread their expansions further away and because people wanted more units in the multiplayer they scrapped this idea (there was no intention for them to add units in the mulitplayer at the beginning). community wanted it community gets it.
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They will not do a separate ladder for HotS.
Instead, they will allow the new multiplayer units for everyone.
Blizzard is not going to be so stupid to fragment its SCII community into further pieces.
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Why would anyone expect HotS to be only single-player expansion, and WoL multiplayer be upgraded to HotS level for free?
Blizzard never did this. With WoW, with sc1, with WC3, it's been always the same. You can play the game you bought. Blizzard will still support and patch vanilla game. You will still be able to play WoL multiplayer, but i assume 99% of active player will move to HotS and eventually to LotV
On February 20 2011 03:40 Kuroan wrote:
They will not do a separate ladder for HotS.
Instead, they will allow the new multiplayer units for everyone.
Blizzard is not going to be so stupid to fragment its SCII community into further pieces.
have you ever owned any other blizzard game?
they always do this, i see no reason why they should not.
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My bet is that they do it exactly like in WC3 -> separate ladder. Is the only thing that makes sense to me.
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This might seem like a plot for more money -- and while it basically is -- at the same time you can't really have the same ladder for two seperate games. It's impossible... so this is pretty expected
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A separate ladder would be cool, but then how are achievements going to work? This sounds lame but I really enjoy getting portraits haha. If we use the same account, will MMR transfer over? Will portraits be different? So many questions D:
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about not the same the ladder ... this works in other games already. dawn of war for example, new units are spread via updates like balancing and the only thing you aren't able is play the races that was provided in the expansion, though you can of course play against this race normally. I guess Blizzard wanted to do it like this (without the race adding hehe) but because everyone was we want more units etc. And probably also because a huge amount of people already bought 3 games to play on all regions. Yeah gamers have to much money so everything will get more expensiv :p.
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On February 18 2011 13:26 Jotoco wrote:
Blizzard said we wouldn't need to buy all 3 games to play multi-player. Guess Activision got in the way of that.
Way to keep your promises, Blizzard...
First, it's not "all 3 games;" it's always been one game and 2 expansions.
Second, they never said that. Ever. They said that you would be able to play the multiplayer with only WoL. And this doesn't interfere with that.
They never said you'd be able to play multiplayer using stuff from new expansions without buying those expansions. And that's how it has always been. This is how SC1 and Brood War worked. This is how WC3 and TFT worked. And therefore this is how WoL/HotS/LotV work.
The only thing that has changed is that there are 2 expansions instead of just one.
On February 18 2011 15:25 Xapti wrote:It is true. The question is whether they changed that idea or not. Looking at the way the FAQ is answered, it looks like it may have been changed so that they are NOT standalone.
No, they didn't. I was at BlizzCon08 when they announced "The StarCraft Trilogy". At no time did they say that the 3 games were "standalone" or anything of the like. And mere days afterward they explicitly clarified that HotS and LotV were going to be expansions, not standalone products.
But that clarification never got mentioned in the press. No, because during the BC08 presentation, they called them three "products". And thanks to that, people will forever believe that they were intended to be standalone. Even though Blizzard never said it.
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Blizzard has NEVER said that you would need only 1 game for full multiplayer. People should have known how it would have worked... the same as EVERY Blizzard game out there.
People probably were fed misinformation from random message boards.
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I swear hots ladder better now be zvz all day everyday....
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On February 20 2011 03:43 Lipski wrote:Why would anyone expect HotS to be only single-player expansion, and WoL multiplayer be upgraded to HotS level for free? Blizzard never did this. With WoW, with sc1, with WC3, it's been always the same. You can play the game you bought. Blizzard will still support and patch vanilla game. You will still be able to play WoL multiplayer, but i assume 99% of active player will move to HotS and eventually to LotV Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 03:40 Kuroan wrote:
They will not do a separate ladder for HotS.
Instead, they will allow the new multiplayer units for everyone.
Blizzard is not going to be so stupid to fragment its SCII community into further pieces. have you ever owned any other blizzard game? they always do this, i see no reason why they should not.
wait a minute, blizzard has done this before?
they first split the RoC game into 5 games with 5 ladders THAN split the frozen throne expansion into 4 games and had 9 total ladders?
they split diablo 2 into 5 games?
this is completely unique from their previous games
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RoC and TFT are different installments of the same game.
SC1 and BW are different installments of the same game.
WoL, HotS and LotV are different installments of the same game.
Do you really not see how that's the exact same situation?
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This doesn't surprise me at all because they said that they'll be new units on Heart of the Swarm, so it'd be impossible to combine the two ladders. If one person was on Heart of the Swarm, and their opponent was on Wings of Liberty, the person on Heart of the Swarm would have the advantage because of the new units.
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Pretty much proves they are going to add stuff!
Yay zerg power!
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A separate ladder would be cool, but then how are achievements going to work? This sounds lame but I really enjoy getting portraits haha. If we use the same account, will MMR transfer over? Will portraits be different? So many questions D:
I was wondering the same thing. Do you think they will treat it as its own game? Like new mmr and achievements? It would be weird if we had to start laddering from scratch, but at the same time, we will be playing a different game than the current one, so should our previous wins count? What will cross over from WoL?
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On February 20 2011 04:27 Eogris wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 03:43 Lipski wrote:Why would anyone expect HotS to be only single-player expansion, and WoL multiplayer be upgraded to HotS level for free? Blizzard never did this. With WoW, with sc1, with WC3, it's been always the same. You can play the game you bought. Blizzard will still support and patch vanilla game. You will still be able to play WoL multiplayer, but i assume 99% of active player will move to HotS and eventually to LotV On February 20 2011 03:40 Kuroan wrote:
They will not do a separate ladder for HotS.
Instead, they will allow the new multiplayer units for everyone.
Blizzard is not going to be so stupid to fragment its SCII community into further pieces. have you ever owned any other blizzard game? they always do this, i see no reason why they should not. wait a minute, blizzard has done this before? they first split the RoC game into 5 games with 5 ladders THAN split the frozen throne expansion into 4 games and had 9 total ladders? they split diablo 2 into 5 games? this is completely unique from their previous games
So wait, you're saying that you could buy "World of Warcraft" and use all the cool new additions of "Frozen Throne" without paying for the expansion?
You're saying that people who purchased Diablo 2 could use the Assassin simply by installing a patch without paying for the expansion?
When they released Brood War, all I had to do was install the patch and start using Lurkers without paying for the expansion?
Wow, to think I completely wasted my money all those times
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On February 20 2011 04:32 Mikau wrote:
RoC and TFT are different installments of the same game.
SC1 and BW are different installments of the same game.
WoL, HotS and LotV are different installments of the same game.
Do you really not see how that's the exact same situation?
obviously theyre different installments, but how can you tell me that this is the same situation?
SC2 -WoL terran campaign, HotS, zerg campaign etc
Wc3:RoC - 5 Campaigns, Wc3:TFT - 4 campaigns
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On February 18 2011 12:59 Combine wrote:Show nested quote +Dustin also stated that there are plans to release a bunch of new maps for the multiplayer experience that will address a lot of issues that fans have raised with the current map pool. These maps, he said, will hopefully be added within the next few weeks. Please be GSL maps. Multiple ladders make sense, but they are kind of redundant. Not going to be a ton of people playing on them knowing the older versions aren't going to be very balanced.
Yea, the older BW got, the less balanced it... no wait
I don't know what to think of this. There are already a gazillion tourneys for SC2 leading (for myself anyway) to oversaturation (like when you ate too many sweets). If there's a separate ladder for the new expansions,... it'll just split up the community even more. I won't be buying HotS or LotV, and what 'expansion' will the GSL (or other large-scale tourneys for that matter) officially use?
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On February 20 2011 04:40 Nemireck wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 04:27 Eogris wrote:On February 20 2011 03:43 Lipski wrote:Why would anyone expect HotS to be only single-player expansion, and WoL multiplayer be upgraded to HotS level for free? Blizzard never did this. With WoW, with sc1, with WC3, it's been always the same. You can play the game you bought. Blizzard will still support and patch vanilla game. You will still be able to play WoL multiplayer, but i assume 99% of active player will move to HotS and eventually to LotV On February 20 2011 03:40 Kuroan wrote:
They will not do a separate ladder for HotS.
Instead, they will allow the new multiplayer units for everyone.
Blizzard is not going to be so stupid to fragment its SCII community into further pieces. have you ever owned any other blizzard game? they always do this, i see no reason why they should not. wait a minute, blizzard has done this before? they first split the RoC game into 5 games with 5 ladders THAN split the frozen throne expansion into 4 games and had 9 total ladders? they split diablo 2 into 5 games? this is completely unique from their previous games So wait, you're saying that you could buy "World of Warcraft" and use all the cool new additions of "Frozen Throne" without paying for the expansion? You're saying that people who purchased Diablo 2 could use the Assassin simply by installing a patch without paying for the expansion? When they released Brood War, all I had to do was install the patch and start using Lurkers without paying for the expansion? Wow, to think I completely wasted my money all those times
the main point is that blizzard has never split ONE GAME into THREE based on race. people are saying they do this for all of their games and unless i'm playing different blizzard games, they dont. I understand that I will buy hots if there will be separate ladders, but i remember reading from a blizzard faq that the only thing the expansions added were campaigns.
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On February 20 2011 04:40 orotoss wrote:Show nested quote +A separate ladder would be cool, but then how are achievements going to work? This sounds lame but I really enjoy getting portraits haha. If we use the same account, will MMR transfer over? Will portraits be different? So many questions D: I was wondering the same thing. Do you think they will treat it as its own game? Like new mmr and achievements? It would be weird if we had to start laddering from scratch, but at the same time, we will be playing a different game than the current one, so should our previous wins count? What will cross over from WoL?
I would imagine that the HotS (And LotV) ladders will start us all in the exact same manner as WoL. It won't take long for people to hit a hot streak and shoot up the ladder while others wallow in the lower leagues, maybe a day, maybe 2.
It wouldn't be 'weird' at all, it'll be a brand new ladder, and we'll all start out equal.
Our previous wins will not "count" on the HotS ladder.
Regarding those that say "But Blizzard said you only need to buy one game to get the multiplayer!!!!"
Yes, you only need to buy one game. Likely WoL as I believe HotS and LotV are being released as expansions. Your multiplayer experience will not stop just because an expansion is being released, you will still be able to play SC2 on the WoL ladder, making Blizzard's statement 100% accurate (assuming they ever actually said it).
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Newsflash: A corporation want's to make money. Nerds angered. Famine. Death. Chaos!
Seriously, I would pay double the price of each game Blizzard releases. You would probably too. Kicking and screaming, you will hand over the cash.
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On February 20 2011 04:44 Eogris wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 04:40 Nemireck wrote:On February 20 2011 04:27 Eogris wrote:On February 20 2011 03:43 Lipski wrote:Why would anyone expect HotS to be only single-player expansion, and WoL multiplayer be upgraded to HotS level for free? Blizzard never did this. With WoW, with sc1, with WC3, it's been always the same. You can play the game you bought. Blizzard will still support and patch vanilla game. You will still be able to play WoL multiplayer, but i assume 99% of active player will move to HotS and eventually to LotV On February 20 2011 03:40 Kuroan wrote:
They will not do a separate ladder for HotS.
Instead, they will allow the new multiplayer units for everyone.
Blizzard is not going to be so stupid to fragment its SCII community into further pieces. have you ever owned any other blizzard game? they always do this, i see no reason why they should not. wait a minute, blizzard has done this before? they first split the RoC game into 5 games with 5 ladders THAN split the frozen throne expansion into 4 games and had 9 total ladders? they split diablo 2 into 5 games? this is completely unique from their previous games So wait, you're saying that you could buy "World of Warcraft" and use all the cool new additions of "Frozen Throne" without paying for the expansion? You're saying that people who purchased Diablo 2 could use the Assassin simply by installing a patch without paying for the expansion? When they released Brood War, all I had to do was install the patch and start using Lurkers without paying for the expansion? Wow, to think I completely wasted my money all those times the main point is that blizzard has never split ONE GAME into THREE based on race. people are saying they do this for all of their games and unless i'm playing different blizzard games, they dont. I understand that I will buy hots if there will be separate ladders, but i remember reading from a blizzard faq that the only thing the expansions added were campaigns.
It might be the first time they've split their SP campaigns based on race, but the general theme is consistent with their past releases. We're getting a couple of new units and/or abilities for multiplayer, and a new campaign to play, not unlike their expansions in SC1, and we're getting more content than we got in their Diablo 2 expansion.
We ARE being ripped off when you consider that SC2 and BW both had 3 campaigns (one for each race), but many players don't even bother with the campaign, or only use it as a warm-up before jumping into the multiplayer experience.
Scaling back content and selling more of it later on is nothing new in our current era of gaming. I knew what I was getting into long before SC2 beta was even started, and anyone who had done a little bit of research before hand should have known what was going to happen as well.
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On February 20 2011 02:12 Eogris wrote:
i was under the impression that the expansions would just be single player campaign upgrades and that multiplayer would be patched to the WoL players.. kind of mad about this.
This post, and hundreds of others in this thread just like it really make me wonder if we're all from the same planet. Look at EVERY OTHER BLIZZARD GAME since the dawn of freakin time. Duh.
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On February 20 2011 04:52 Dox wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 02:12 Eogris wrote:
i was under the impression that the expansions would just be single player campaign upgrades and that multiplayer would be patched to the WoL players.. kind of mad about this. This post, and hundreds of others in this thread just like it really make me wonder if we're all from the same planet. Look at EVERY OTHER BLIZZARD GAME since the dawn of freakin time. Duh.
I hear you man. Sometimes you really have to wonder what people are mixing with the sugar they put on their Corn Flakes in the morning...
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On February 20 2011 04:52 Dox wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 02:12 Eogris wrote:
i was under the impression that the expansions would just be single player campaign upgrades and that multiplayer would be patched to the WoL players.. kind of mad about this. This post, and hundreds of others in this thread just like it really make me wonder if we're all from the same planet. Look at EVERY OTHER BLIZZARD GAME since the dawn of freakin time. Duh.
read my other posts because i am seriously beginning to wonder if some of you guys even played the other blizzard games..
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On February 20 2011 04:51 Nemireck wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 04:44 Eogris wrote:
the main point is that blizzard has never split ONE GAME into THREE based on race. people are saying they do this for all of their games and unless i'm playing different blizzard games, they dont. I understand that I will buy hots if there will be separate ladders, but i remember reading from a blizzard faq that the only thing the expansions added were campaigns.
It might be the first time they've split their SP campaigns based on race, but the general theme is consistent with their past releases. We're getting a couple of new units and/or abilities for multiplayer, and a new campaign to play, not unlike their expansions in SC1, and we're getting more content than we got in their Diablo 2 expansion. We ARE being ripped off when you consider that SC2 and BW both had 3 campaigns (one for each race), but many players don't even bother with the campaign, or only use it as a warm-up before jumping into the multiplayer experience. Scaling back content and selling more of it later on is nothing new in our current era of gaming. I knew what I was getting into long before SC2 beta was even started, and anyone who had done a little bit of research before hand should have known what was going to happen as well.
Actually, SC1 and Brood War each had ~30 missions, ~10 for each race.
SC2: WoL has ~30 missions, and each expansion is planned to have ~30 as well. Along with new units/buildings/spells in multiplayer.
So we're actually getting the same amount of content (besides basic game functions) in each installment. I would expect the expansions to be priced from $30-$40 (USD).
That being said, I don't understand the complainers in this thread. Blizzard has been done this for every game since the beginning of Battle.net.
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This made me wonder. If they already knew before releasing WoL that they wanted to make and sell 2 expansions, say with each expansion adding stuff (units/upgrades) to multiplayer, does this also mean that in order to sell those expansions, it would be in their best interest to NOT have the game be completely balanced before LotV? Almost seems like if before that expansions ready if the multiplayer becomes completely balanced and everyones happy with it they would either mess that balance up by adding new multiplayer things and competitive players would wantto stay on HotS. Or they would have to not add anything new to multiplayer in the interest of balance and then there would be people who don't care about the campaign not buying it. Sorry for the terrible grammar, what do you people think?
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On February 20 2011 05:13 hunts wrote:
This made me wonder. If they already knew before releasing WoL that they wanted to make and sell 2 expansions, say with each expansion adding stuff (units/upgrades) to multiplayer, does this also mean that in order to sell those expansions, it would be in their best interest to NOT have the game be completely balanced before LotV? Almost seems like if before that expansions ready if the multiplayer becomes completely balanced and everyones happy with it they would either mess that balance up by adding new multiplayer things and competitive players would wantto stay on HotS. Or they would have to not add anything new to multiplayer in the interest of balance and then there would be people who don't care about the campaign not buying it. Sorry for the terrible grammar, what do you people think?
The answer to your question is...
Brood War.
The Frozen Throne.
Lord of Destruction.
etc.
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They have said that the expansions are part of their overarching plan to balance the game yes. They have two planned mantainance stops where they can add/remove units and tweak game mechanics. This is quite official. This thread needs to start making sense.
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On February 20 2011 05:00 uberon wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 04:51 Nemireck wrote:On February 20 2011 04:44 Eogris wrote:
the main point is that blizzard has never split ONE GAME into THREE based on race. people are saying they do this for all of their games and unless i'm playing different blizzard games, they dont. I understand that I will buy hots if there will be separate ladders, but i remember reading from a blizzard faq that the only thing the expansions added were campaigns.
It might be the first time they've split their SP campaigns based on race, but the general theme is consistent with their past releases. We're getting a couple of new units and/or abilities for multiplayer, and a new campaign to play, not unlike their expansions in SC1, and we're getting more content than we got in their Diablo 2 expansion. We ARE being ripped off when you consider that SC2 and BW both had 3 campaigns (one for each race), but many players don't even bother with the campaign, or only use it as a warm-up before jumping into the multiplayer experience. Scaling back content and selling more of it later on is nothing new in our current era of gaming. I knew what I was getting into long before SC2 beta was even started, and anyone who had done a little bit of research before hand should have known what was going to happen as well. Actually, SC1 and Brood War each had ~30 missions, ~10 for each race. SC2: WoL has ~30 missions, and each expansion is planned to have ~30 as well. Along with new units/buildings/spells in multiplayer. So we're actually getting the same amount of content (besides basic game functions) in each installment. I would expect the expansions to be priced from $30-$40 (USD). That being said, I don't understand the complainers in this thread. Blizzard has been done this for every game since the beginning of Battle.net.
the point was that it was previously stated (i cant find the link) that each release would be a full standalone with the same battle net experience for all 3 versions
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On February 20 2011 05:13 hunts wrote:
This made me wonder. If they already knew before releasing WoL that they wanted to make and sell 2 expansions, say with each expansion adding stuff (units/upgrades) to multiplayer, does this also mean that in order to sell those expansions, it would be in their best interest to NOT have the game be completely balanced before LotV? Almost seems like if before that expansions ready if the multiplayer becomes completely balanced and everyones happy with it they would either mess that balance up by adding new multiplayer things and competitive players would wantto stay on HotS. Or they would have to not add anything new to multiplayer in the interest of balance and then there would be people who don't care about the campaign not buying it. Sorry for the terrible grammar, what do you people think?
i think you need paragraphs.
I think players would still move on to the expansions if blizzard had managed to make all players of all race happy about balance (not a chance that it happens anytime soon).
more units/spells/stuff should mean more depth, which should also mean more fun (playing/spectating), so that reason alone is enough for me to think that players would move on to the expansions
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On February 20 2011 05:13 hunts wrote:
This made me wonder. If they already knew before releasing WoL that they wanted to make and sell 2 expansions, say with each expansion adding stuff (units/upgrades) to multiplayer, does this also mean that in order to sell those expansions, it would be in their best interest to NOT have the game be completely balanced before LotV? Almost seems like if before that expansions ready if the multiplayer becomes completely balanced and everyones happy with it they would either mess that balance up by adding new multiplayer things and competitive players would wantto stay on HotS. Or they would have to not add anything new to multiplayer in the interest of balance and then there would be people who don't care about the campaign not buying it. Sorry for the terrible grammar, what do you people think?
They don't want the game to have broken balance.
But at the same time, balance isn't the only thing for them to fix in an expansion. What if the game was completely balanced, but one race just wasn't fun to play at all, even if you could win with them? They'd want to fix things like that to make the game more fun.
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On February 20 2011 05:22 Leeoku wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 05:00 uberon wrote:On February 20 2011 04:51 Nemireck wrote:On February 20 2011 04:44 Eogris wrote:
the main point is that blizzard has never split ONE GAME into THREE based on race. people are saying they do this for all of their games and unless i'm playing different blizzard games, they dont. I understand that I will buy hots if there will be separate ladders, but i remember reading from a blizzard faq that the only thing the expansions added were campaigns.
It might be the first time they've split their SP campaigns based on race, but the general theme is consistent with their past releases. We're getting a couple of new units and/or abilities for multiplayer, and a new campaign to play, not unlike their expansions in SC1, and we're getting more content than we got in their Diablo 2 expansion. We ARE being ripped off when you consider that SC2 and BW both had 3 campaigns (one for each race), but many players don't even bother with the campaign, or only use it as a warm-up before jumping into the multiplayer experience. Scaling back content and selling more of it later on is nothing new in our current era of gaming. I knew what I was getting into long before SC2 beta was even started, and anyone who had done a little bit of research before hand should have known what was going to happen as well. Actually, SC1 and Brood War each had ~30 missions, ~10 for each race. SC2: WoL has ~30 missions, and each expansion is planned to have ~30 as well. Along with new units/buildings/spells in multiplayer. So we're actually getting the same amount of content (besides basic game functions) in each installment. I would expect the expansions to be priced from $30-$40 (USD). That being said, I don't understand the complainers in this thread. Blizzard has been done this for every game since the beginning of Battle.net. the point was that it was previously stated (i cant find the link) that each release would be a full standalone with the same battle net experience for all 3 versions
Like many ppl said the last couple pages, this is simply not true.
Was this with warcraft 3 and frone throne?
Was this with starcraft and broodwar?
they never said they were standalone packs, where do ppl get this idea from?
unless you have a link that proofs it it is simply wrong.
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I wish there was a way to at least combine achievements or portraits or something into the new ladder. I felt the same way with TFT when it came out. They offered new portraits for TFT... but we couldn't also select the ones we'd earned on ROC? lame. Its not like people would get confused and think you earned it on tft... only ROC wins counted. =/ oh well.
I understand that there will be a different ladder, but its all the same battle.net is my point. Should be able to see how you're ranked on the WoL ladder and on the HotS ladder from the same interface. And select any portrait you've earned form either ladder for B.net.
There's zero reason why that isn't technically feasible.
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I really don't want the scene to split even further. We already have SC Vanilla (Does exist to some extent), SC BW vs. SC2, and I already hate this. SC2 scene only would be so much better, and far more competitive and fun.
But I guess I'm in the smaller of the two groups of people. I reckon most want as many different "ladders" as possible.
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On February 20 2011 05:22 Leeoku wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 05:00 uberon wrote:On February 20 2011 04:51 Nemireck wrote:On February 20 2011 04:44 Eogris wrote:
the main point is that blizzard has never split ONE GAME into THREE based on race. people are saying they do this for all of their games and unless i'm playing different blizzard games, they dont. I understand that I will buy hots if there will be separate ladders, but i remember reading from a blizzard faq that the only thing the expansions added were campaigns.
It might be the first time they've split their SP campaigns based on race, but the general theme is consistent with their past releases. We're getting a couple of new units and/or abilities for multiplayer, and a new campaign to play, not unlike their expansions in SC1, and we're getting more content than we got in their Diablo 2 expansion. We ARE being ripped off when you consider that SC2 and BW both had 3 campaigns (one for each race), but many players don't even bother with the campaign, or only use it as a warm-up before jumping into the multiplayer experience. Scaling back content and selling more of it later on is nothing new in our current era of gaming. I knew what I was getting into long before SC2 beta was even started, and anyone who had done a little bit of research before hand should have known what was going to happen as well. Actually, SC1 and Brood War each had ~30 missions, ~10 for each race. SC2: WoL has ~30 missions, and each expansion is planned to have ~30 as well. Along with new units/buildings/spells in multiplayer. So we're actually getting the same amount of content (besides basic game functions) in each installment. I would expect the expansions to be priced from $30-$40 (USD). That being said, I don't understand the complainers in this thread. Blizzard has been done this for every game since the beginning of Battle.net. the point was that it was previously stated (i cant find the link) that each release would be a full standalone with the same battle net experience for all 3 versions
They were quite clear that they would be expansions, not stand-alone games. The media reporting on the announcements described the expansions as stand-alone, not Blizzard themselves.
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Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it.
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On February 20 2011 07:14 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it.
How is it a trick?
you rather want no updates for the multiplayer at all?
oh no, you want free unit updates in a game wich is clearly focused on multiplayer.
Its not like they shut down the WOL servers is it? zomg i need to spend money for new content, wuts this?!
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On February 20 2011 07:28 Assirra wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 07:14 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it. How is it a trick? you rather want no updates for the multiplayer at all? oh no, you want free unit updates in a game wich is clearly focused on multiplayer. Its not like they shut down the WOL servers is it? zomg i need to spend money for new content, wuts this?!
Do you really think that no updates is the only alternative to this?
It used to be standart to have new content and updates for free, just like it used to be standart to have a game released that was working with only few bugs. Nowadays its all about making money, which is understandable as blizzard is just another company as well. Valve shows that it is possible to make a good living out of selling games without constantly pressuring to buy expansions ( cs source or tf2 ).
Are you really making fun of me because Im find it unacceptable to be forced like this?
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On February 20 2011 07:37 Kleinmuuhg wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 07:28 Assirra wrote:On February 20 2011 07:14 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it. How is it a trick? you rather want no updates for the multiplayer at all? oh no, you want free unit updates in a game wich is clearly focused on multiplayer. Its not like they shut down the WOL servers is it? zomg i need to spend money for new content, wuts this?! Do you really think that no updates is the only alternative to this? It used to be standart to have new content and updates for free, just like it used to be standart to have a game released that was working with only few bugs. Nowadays its all about making money, which is understandable as blizzard is just another company as well. Valve shows that it is possible to make a good living out of selling games without constantly pressuring to buy expansions ( cs source or tf2 ). Are you really making fun of me because Im find it unacceptable to be forced like this?
But Blizzard do provide free updates and content in SC 2?
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On February 20 2011 07:40 Eury wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 07:37 Kleinmuuhg wrote:On February 20 2011 07:28 Assirra wrote:On February 20 2011 07:14 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it. How is it a trick? you rather want no updates for the multiplayer at all? oh no, you want free unit updates in a game wich is clearly focused on multiplayer. Its not like they shut down the WOL servers is it? zomg i need to spend money for new content, wuts this?! Do you really think that no updates is the only alternative to this? It used to be standart to have new content and updates for free, just like it used to be standart to have a game released that was working with only few bugs. Nowadays its all about making money, which is understandable as blizzard is just another company as well. Valve shows that it is possible to make a good living out of selling games without constantly pressuring to buy expansions ( cs source or tf2 ). Are you really making fun of me because Im find it unacceptable to be forced like this? But Blizzard do provide free updates and content in SC 2?
They provide free updates for the bugs that shouldn't be there in the first place and for balance issues which both are essential so that it is even possible to play.They're not adding anything new.
Now keep in mind please that I'm not raging against Blizzard. They made a lot of great games and from their view it is totally understandable to make money out of that, but i think my criticism isn't totally unjustified.
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ur not just buying a new ladder and units remember, theres a whole zerg single player too ^^
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I thought they were all going to be stand alone games?
Further, Does the OP imply that LotV will have all the units from HotS and WoL? Soooo, don't buy HoTS, just wait for LotV and get the 'final' ladder with all the units... Or will there be ladders for every conceivable mix of 'expansions'?
Example, a Ladder for people with WoL, and LotV, but not HotS
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On February 20 2011 07:44 Kleinmuuhg wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 07:40 Eury wrote:On February 20 2011 07:37 Kleinmuuhg wrote:On February 20 2011 07:28 Assirra wrote:On February 20 2011 07:14 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it. How is it a trick? you rather want no updates for the multiplayer at all? oh no, you want free unit updates in a game wich is clearly focused on multiplayer. Its not like they shut down the WOL servers is it? zomg i need to spend money for new content, wuts this?! Do you really think that no updates is the only alternative to this? It used to be standart to have new content and updates for free, just like it used to be standart to have a game released that was working with only few bugs. Nowadays its all about making money, which is understandable as blizzard is just another company as well. Valve shows that it is possible to make a good living out of selling games without constantly pressuring to buy expansions ( cs source or tf2 ). Are you really making fun of me because Im find it unacceptable to be forced like this? But Blizzard do provide free updates and content in SC 2? They provide free updates for the bugs that shouldn't be there in the first place and for balance issues which both are essential so that it is even possible to play.They're not adding anything new. Now keep in mind please that I'm not raging against Blizzard. They made a lot of great games and from their view it is totally understandable to make money out of that, but i think my criticism isn't totally unjustified.
Bugs will always exist. Find me a game without any bugs.
Secondly they do provide free content, Star Jewel, Aiur Chef, Left 2 Die + several melee maps have been provided after launch without costing you anything extra.
Maybe that isn't good enough for you, so why don't you tell us what kind of free content you are after, hats ala TF 2 perhaps?
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On February 20 2011 07:54 QuestSeekers wrote:
I thought they were all going to be stand alone games?
Further, Does the OP imply that LotV will have all the units from HoTS and WoL? Soooo, don't buy HoTS, just wait for LotV and get the 'final' ladder with all the units... Or will there be ladders for every conceivable mix of 'expansions'?
"just waiting" for lotv would mean waiting for like 1.5 years , but it would be a possibility.
On February 20 2011 07:54 Eury wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 07:44 Kleinmuuhg wrote:On February 20 2011 07:40 Eury wrote:On February 20 2011 07:37 Kleinmuuhg wrote:On February 20 2011 07:28 Assirra wrote:On February 20 2011 07:14 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it. How is it a trick? you rather want no updates for the multiplayer at all? oh no, you want free unit updates in a game wich is clearly focused on multiplayer. Its not like they shut down the WOL servers is it? zomg i need to spend money for new content, wuts this?! Do you really think that no updates is the only alternative to this? It used to be standart to have new content and updates for free, just like it used to be standart to have a game released that was working with only few bugs. Nowadays its all about making money, which is understandable as blizzard is just another company as well. Valve shows that it is possible to make a good living out of selling games without constantly pressuring to buy expansions ( cs source or tf2 ). Are you really making fun of me because Im find it unacceptable to be forced like this? But Blizzard do provide free updates and content in SC 2? They provide free updates for the bugs that shouldn't be there in the first place and for balance issues which both are essential so that it is even possible to play.They're not adding anything new. Now keep in mind please that I'm not raging against Blizzard. They made a lot of great games and from their view it is totally understandable to make money out of that, but i think my criticism isn't totally unjustified. Bugs will always exist. Find me a game without any bugs. Secondly they do provide free content, Star Jewel, Aiur Chef, Left 2 Die + several melee maps have been provided after launch without costing you anything extra. Maybe that isn't good enough for you, so why don't you tell us what kind of free content you are after, hats ala TF 2 perhaps?
"Maybe that isnt good enough for you" Are you serious?
If you dont want to have a rational argument, fine.
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On February 20 2011 07:54 QuestSeekers wrote:
I thought they were all going to be stand alone games?
Further, Does the OP imply that LotV will have all the units from HoTS and WoL? Soooo, don't buy HoTS, just wait for LotV and get the 'final' ladder with all the units... Or will there be ladders for every conceivable mix of 'expansions'?
Unless Blizzard make it so that LotV requires an installed HoTS
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On February 20 2011 07:37 Kleinmuuhg wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 07:28 Assirra wrote:On February 20 2011 07:14 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it. How is it a trick? you rather want no updates for the multiplayer at all? oh no, you want free unit updates in a game wich is clearly focused on multiplayer. Its not like they shut down the WOL servers is it? zomg i need to spend money for new content, wuts this?! Do you really think that no updates is the only alternative to this? It used to be standart to have new content and updates for free, just like it used to be standart to have a game released that was working with only few bugs. Nowadays its all about making money, which is understandable as blizzard is just another company as well. Valve shows that it is possible to make a good living out of selling games without constantly pressuring to buy expansions ( cs source or tf2 ). Are you really making fun of me because Im find it unacceptable to be forced like this?
Valve is the exception, not the rule.
They are known for doing crazy stuff like that in the same way they are known for selling games at insanely low prices during the steam sales.
I am not sure if it ever was standard that you got free updates, i might have missed something but from far as i can remember you always needed to buy new content, from expansion to DLC (dont get me started about this crap)
Plz give me examples if i am wrong here.(non valve)
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On February 20 2011 07:58 Assirra wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 07:37 Kleinmuuhg wrote:On February 20 2011 07:28 Assirra wrote:On February 20 2011 07:14 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it. How is it a trick? you rather want no updates for the multiplayer at all? oh no, you want free unit updates in a game wich is clearly focused on multiplayer. Its not like they shut down the WOL servers is it? zomg i need to spend money for new content, wuts this?! Do you really think that no updates is the only alternative to this? It used to be standart to have new content and updates for free, just like it used to be standart to have a game released that was working with only few bugs. Nowadays its all about making money, which is understandable as blizzard is just another company as well. Valve shows that it is possible to make a good living out of selling games without constantly pressuring to buy expansions ( cs source or tf2 ). Are you really making fun of me because Im find it unacceptable to be forced like this? Valve is the exception, not the rule. They are known for doing crazy stuff like that in the same way they are known for selling games at insanely low prices during the steam sales. I am not sure if it ever was standard that you got free updates, i might have missed something but from far as i can remember you always needed to buy new content, from expansion to DLC (dont get me started about this crap) Plz give me examples if i am wrong here.(non valve)
You're right maybe I went a little to far with the standart new content. Gotta leave this thread before I get destroyed.
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Is everyone missing the part about new maps in the next few weeks or did I understand wrong?
I hope there are some good new maps integrated into the pool soon
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On February 20 2011 07:56 Kleinmuuhg wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 07:54 QuestSeekers wrote:
I thought they were all going to be stand alone games?
Further, Does the OP imply that LotV will have all the units from HoTS and WoL? Soooo, don't buy HoTS, just wait for LotV and get the 'final' ladder with all the units... Or will there be ladders for every conceivable mix of 'expansions'? "just waiting" for lotv would mean waiting for like 1.5 years , but it would be a possibility. Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 07:54 Eury wrote:On February 20 2011 07:44 Kleinmuuhg wrote:On February 20 2011 07:40 Eury wrote:On February 20 2011 07:37 Kleinmuuhg wrote:On February 20 2011 07:28 Assirra wrote:On February 20 2011 07:14 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it. How is it a trick? you rather want no updates for the multiplayer at all? oh no, you want free unit updates in a game wich is clearly focused on multiplayer. Its not like they shut down the WOL servers is it? zomg i need to spend money for new content, wuts this?! Do you really think that no updates is the only alternative to this? It used to be standart to have new content and updates for free, just like it used to be standart to have a game released that was working with only few bugs. Nowadays its all about making money, which is understandable as blizzard is just another company as well. Valve shows that it is possible to make a good living out of selling games without constantly pressuring to buy expansions ( cs source or tf2 ). Are you really making fun of me because Im find it unacceptable to be forced like this? But Blizzard do provide free updates and content in SC 2? They provide free updates for the bugs that shouldn't be there in the first place and for balance issues which both are essential so that it is even possible to play.They're not adding anything new. Now keep in mind please that I'm not raging against Blizzard. They made a lot of great games and from their view it is totally understandable to make money out of that, but i think my criticism isn't totally unjustified. Bugs will always exist. Find me a game without any bugs. Secondly they do provide free content, Star Jewel, Aiur Chef, Left 2 Die + several melee maps have been provided after launch without costing you anything extra. Maybe that isn't good enough for you, so why don't you tell us what kind of free content you are after, hats ala TF 2 perhaps? "Maybe that isnt good enough for you" Are you serious? If you dont want to have a rational argument, fine.
It was a simple question, what kind of free content do you feel is lacking in SC 2?
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On February 20 2011 07:37 Kleinmuuhg wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 07:28 Assirra wrote:On February 20 2011 07:14 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it. How is it a trick? you rather want no updates for the multiplayer at all? oh no, you want free unit updates in a game wich is clearly focused on multiplayer. Its not like they shut down the WOL servers is it? zomg i need to spend money for new content, wuts this?! Do you really think that no updates is the only alternative to this? It used to be standart to have new content and updates for free, just like it used to be standart to have a game released that was working with only few bugs. Nowadays its all about making money, which is understandable as blizzard is just another company as well. Valve shows that it is possible to make a good living out of selling games without constantly pressuring to buy expansions ( cs source or tf2 ). Are you really making fun of me because Im find it unacceptable to be forced like this?
You have no idea how the gaming industry works....
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On February 20 2011 03:46 [NoiSe] wrote:
A separate ladder would be cool, but then how are achievements going to work? This sounds lame but I really enjoy getting portraits haha. If we use the same account, will MMR transfer over? Will portraits be different? So many questions D:
This is the only question I have. Will our PROFILE transfer over? Will we keep our achievement points and portraits? I really hope so. This is the only thing that I would rage over. I'm a bit of an achievement whore and not getting to keep those in the new expansion would be pretty stupid.
Although getting an answer in this sea of "omg blizzard is ripping us off! D:" seems unlikely.
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On February 20 2011 08:35 genius_man16 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 03:46 [NoiSe] wrote:
A separate ladder would be cool, but then how are achievements going to work? This sounds lame but I really enjoy getting portraits haha. If we use the same account, will MMR transfer over? Will portraits be different? So many questions D: This is the only question I have. Will our PROFILE transfer over? Will we keep our achievement points and portraits? I really hope so. This is the only thing that I would rage over. I'm a bit of an achievement whore and not getting to keep those in the new expansion would be pretty stupid. Although getting an answer in this sea of "omg blizzard is ripping us off! D:" seems unlikely.
hopefully blizzard won't chop off our e-peens
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On February 20 2011 07:37 Kleinmuuhg wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 07:28 Assirra wrote:On February 20 2011 07:14 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it. How is it a trick? you rather want no updates for the multiplayer at all? oh no, you want free unit updates in a game wich is clearly focused on multiplayer. Its not like they shut down the WOL servers is it? zomg i need to spend money for new content, wuts this?! Do you really think that no updates is the only alternative to this? It used to be standart to have new content and updates for free, just like it used to be standart to have a game released that was working with only few bugs. Nowadays its all about making money, which is understandable as blizzard is just another company as well. Valve shows that it is possible to make a good living out of selling games without constantly pressuring to buy expansions ( cs source or tf2 ). Are you really making fun of me because Im find it unacceptable to be forced like this?
It also used to be standard to have 8 bit graphics.
It also used to be standard to be unable to fix a game once released if it had bugs.
It also used to be standard to only have a single player campaign.
Content can't always be provided for free you know, it costs MONEY to develop that content. Do you understand that new content requires paid employees to develop? It's perfectly reasonable to charge for it to cover those costs and even *gasp* profit from that provided content. Just as it's perfectly reasonable to spend your money elsewhere if you're not happy with the new content.
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On February 20 2011 09:21 Nemireck wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 07:37 Kleinmuuhg wrote:On February 20 2011 07:28 Assirra wrote:On February 20 2011 07:14 Kleinmuuhg wrote:
Theyre using the same trick they used in wow. "You dont have to buy the expansion, you can still play the normal version " and with normal i mean old, and with play i mean alone. So yeah, basically you will have to buy it. How is it a trick? you rather want no updates for the multiplayer at all? oh no, you want free unit updates in a game wich is clearly focused on multiplayer. Its not like they shut down the WOL servers is it? zomg i need to spend money for new content, wuts this?! Do you really think that no updates is the only alternative to this? It used to be standart to have new content and updates for free, just like it used to be standart to have a game released that was working with only few bugs. Nowadays its all about making money, which is understandable as blizzard is just another company as well. Valve shows that it is possible to make a good living out of selling games without constantly pressuring to buy expansions ( cs source or tf2 ). Are you really making fun of me because Im find it unacceptable to be forced like this? It also used to be standard to have 8 bit graphics. It also used to be standard to be unable to fix a game once released if it had bugs. It also used to be standard to only have a single player campaign. Content can't always be provided for free you know, it costs MONEY to develop that content. Do you understand that new content requires paid employees to develop? It's perfectly reasonable to charge for it to cover those costs and even *gasp* profit from that provided content. Just as it's perfectly reasonable to spend your money elsewhere if you're not happy with the new content.
He still hasn't answered what kind of free content he is after, because Blizzard has already provided free content for SC 2 post-release.
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Not really surprising, WoL ladder will be a ghost town, just like oldschool wow content got when new expansions came out. Though why you would want to play WoL when HOTS is out I do not know.
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smart for them because i wouldn't buy HOTS probably anyway otherwise because i don't play Z. at least, i wouldn't buy it right away. but i want the new units. and if the units are any good, you get a new metagame for your money. lol
calling it an expansion is sort of misleading as the campaign will be brand new. lots of games use the same engine (fallout 3, fallout new vegas).
at least we don't have to pay for new maps like in halo, pay to play online like xbox live, and sc isn't riddled with bugs like every obsidian game known to man.
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yeah i swear they said you wouldnt have to buy the expansions to play multiplayer, ah bobby kotick you cheeky bastard...
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Why are we still talking about the separate ladder?
YAWN no surprises there. Personally, the only thing I even noticed in this thread was this:
+ Show Spoiler +Dustin also stated that there are plans to release a bunch of new maps for the multiplayer experience that will address a lot of issues that fans have raised with the current map pool. These maps, he said, will hopefully be added within the next few weeks.
Now that news is HUGE (and awesome).
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On February 21 2011 11:59 SupastaR wrote:
yeah i swear they said you wouldnt have to buy the expansions to play multiplayer, ah bobby kotick you cheeky bastard...
Well, you don't have to buy the expansions. Just keep playing WoL multiplayer if you're cheap.
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On February 20 2011 08:39 megagoten wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2011 08:35 genius_man16 wrote:On February 20 2011 03:46 [NoiSe] wrote:
A separate ladder would be cool, but then how are achievements going to work? This sounds lame but I really enjoy getting portraits haha. If we use the same account, will MMR transfer over? Will portraits be different? So many questions D: This is the only question I have. Will our PROFILE transfer over? Will we keep our achievement points and portraits? I really hope so. This is the only thing that I would rage over. I'm a bit of an achievement whore and not getting to keep those in the new expansion would be pretty stupid. Although getting an answer in this sea of "omg blizzard is ripping us off! D:" seems unlikely. hopefully blizzard won't chop off our e-peens
I would cry if they did.
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The lack of economic understanding in this thread is baffling.
Do you people think Blizzard are wizards? They form a magic circle and conjure forth a new game with no wages or development costs to be had?
You paid sixty dollars for a game. Do you know what that means? Assuming a Blizzard employee makes around 30 dollars US an hour (which may be a bit low), you have paid for two hours of development.
Two hours. And then you think what, you deserve however much time Blizzard had to invest to make HotS or LoV for free?
I swear. Some of you people are unbelievably daft.
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So is this going to reset the amount of wins on our account? x.x
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The problem with this, no matter what Dustin as always is saying, that in every game Blizzard released so far, balance was based around expansions only.
This means that in HotS will be new units etc., and current units will be changed to maintain balance with HotS units - even in WoL.
So WoL will be inbalanced due to missing units. And everyone will be forced to buy HotS.
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On February 21 2011 11:59 SupastaR wrote:
yeah i swear they said you wouldnt have to buy the expansions to play multiplayer, ah bobby kotick you cheeky bastard...
No they didn't.
Find the quote from BLIZZARD (not some silly site who wants hits) to prove me wrong.
They ALWAYS done it like this so why do ppl suspect anything else now i beyond me.
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On February 22 2011 08:23 Sek-Kuar wrote:
So WoL will be inbalanced due to missing units. And everyone will be forced to buy HotS.
just check how it was done with sc and wc3 and their expansions. vanilla game and expansion always had been balanced separately.
why post when obviously you have no idea what are you talking about?
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On February 22 2011 08:23 Sek-Kuar wrote:
The problem with this, no matter what Dustin as always is saying, that in every game Blizzard released so far, balance was based around expansions only.
This means that in HotS will be new units etc., and current units will be changed to maintain balance with HotS units - even in WoL.
So WoL will be inbalanced due to missing units. And everyone will be forced to buy HotS.
really?
so you like the game enough to keep playing WoL, but you don't like it enough to actually buy the new game?
why are you even worried about balance at all, it's pretty clear it doesn't exactly apply to a player such as yourself anyways if you're not even willing to buy the new expansion
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@chonkyfire: you seem to be someone who dont like reading other ppl posts, yet spam and flame a lot. And at the same time, you have posts count of someone barely doing something - im confused.
Anyway, I havent said I wont buy HotS, I said everyone will have to buy it.
@Lipski: Im sorry, but you are wrong. I was playing every game Blizzard released since D1 (except wow) and always the only difference between patch notes is absence of expansion specific things in original game. And thats about it.
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I do like that.
It is a confirmation that there will be new units, which i feel are really needed, especially for zerg who are quite limited in their variation of gamestyles.
The only problem might be if some dudes do not accept the changes and this ends up in, for example, GSl playing the SC2 Vanilla, NASL playing the HOTS Expansion and some other playing the Protoss Expansion. That would be so ridiculous.
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I dislike the idea, i remember reading somewhere that if you wanted multiplayer you wouldnt need to purchase all three... they ust have changed their minds on that, i figured they would just make the updates for multiplayer in patches etc... like give them in multi all the new unit changes etc... and not the campaign (which ill prolly never touch, only bought sc2 for multiplayer)
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On February 22 2011 09:24 veE wrote:
I dislike the idea, i remember reading somewhere that if you wanted multiplayer you wouldnt need to purchase all three... they ust have changed their minds on that,
They haven't changed their minds, you will still be able to play multiplayer without purchasing either of the expansions. You will be able to play the WoL ladder.
i figured they would just make the updates for multiplayer in patches etc... like give them in multi all the new unit changes etc...
Why in the world would you think that would ever happen?
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On February 18 2011 12:49 G_Wen wrote:http://www.gosugamers.net/starcraft2/news/14646-heart-of-the-swarm-to-have-separate-ladderShow nested quote +Posted by Roy "Phantom" Kwan
In an interview with games.on.net, Dustin Browder has revealed that Heart of the Swarm expansion will have its own ladder for any player upgrading to the expansion.
As with its previous RTS titles, Blizzard's StarCraft 2 will have ladders created for each of its expansions. Dustin Browder recently told games.on.net that as with previous RTS expansions, a new ladder will be created for the Heart of the Swarm. Although there will be a separate ladder for HotS, players will still be able to play the Wings of Liberty ladder without having, 'to deal with new units or balance problems or anything like that,' said Browder.
This will most likely mean that at the end of StarCraft 2's final expansion, there will be a total of three separate ladders for the game. Legacy of the Void is the second expansion for StarCraft 2, there is currently very little information on this expansion.
Dustin also stated that there are plans to release a bunch of new maps for the multiplayer experience that will address a lot of issues that fans have raised with the current map pool. These maps, he said, will hopefully be added within the next few weeks.
Other topics the interview touched on were on StarCraft 2 mod maps. Browder elaborated on the origins of the maps Aiur Chef and StarJeweled. Blizzard DotA was also discussed. 'We’re definitely trying to streamline it, but we’re also definitely trying to make it as competitive, or even more competitive,' says Dustin Browder. mod edit: don't link poll images directly, they expirehttp://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=191526Here's a poll from a previous post on how the ladder will be set up. Personally I'm fine with separate ladders since it gives players the choice to play competitively on either game. Having one global aggregated ladder would be a much needed feature. What're your thoughts on this?
hm?
never played sc1 bw? wc3 tft? it was always this way and will stay that way
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On February 22 2011 09:14 Sek-Kuar wrote:
@chonkyfire: you seem to be someone who dont like reading other ppl posts, yet spam and flame a lot.
i read your one moronic post that made no sense, and I let you know that it made no sense. Don't take it personal.
And at the same time, you have posts count of someone barely doing something - im confused.
lol wtf? look at your post count.
They don't teach how to count very well in the czech republic do they?
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There will be new units each race can use in HotS???? In multiplayer? really? I thought WoL had all the units for multiplayer already. Interesting.
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EPT
