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Keep "my game is better than yours"-slapfights out of this. If the discussion devolves into simple bashing, this thread will be closed. |
On May 15 2014 05:03 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 04:57 urboss wrote:I'm hoping for StarCraft 3 with Age of Mythology units...  for the RTS genre.. in the past 3 years and 10 months Blizzard has produced the Hellbat, the Oracle and 25 campaign missions. WOW, what an incredible amount of new content for the RTS genre. ( notice i didn't say WoW) and LotV is years away. there is nothing about it any where. don't expect anything at Blizzcon. so that 3 years and 10 months will grow to about 6 years or maybe 7.
Well, suffice it to say that the Starcraft 2 team is probably one of the smaller ones at Blizzard, especially with their own MOBA coming up.
Honestly, the fact that Starcraft 2, an RTS, is still so popular four years after its release is a feat, and it has got the esports scene that developed around it to thank for that. Personally, as a casual player, I have little to no reason to still play the game. I have finished both campaigns multiple times and when playing ladder I stress out more than I actually have fun. At the moment I'm not even sure if I will buy Legacy of the Void. I find Protoss to be an incredibly boring race to both play and watch, and the storyline of the past two SC2 iterations was anything but captivating.
I am silently hoping that one day a developer will drop a new game that gives blizzard a run for their money. They could use some competition. They can pretty much do whatever they want with LOTV, there is not competition anyway. I felt that CoH2 could have been that game, but clearly Relic had to cut many corners due to financial issues. It's a pity though, because they were pretty much the only developer that managed to shake up the RTS scene with their vision on how things can be done.
Maybe one day we will get a new Age of Empires worthy of the name, but I doubt it. Warcraft 4 we are probably never going to see. C&C is dead and burried. The Total War series is collapsing under its own ambition, and even so the RTS part never really felt quite up to par (people have been complaining about the AI for almost a decade and there is still very little improvement). SupCom 2 was a flop (too hard for casuals and not hard enough for the hardcore), and Ruse, while a fun concept, was too much of a jack of all trades but master of none. Tom Clancy's Endwar was a nice experiment, but ended up failing like every other console RTS (including Halo Wars).
There have been many experiments over the past five years or so, but the problem has so far always been the same: none of these games managed to capture that feeling, that magic the old RTS games had. Is there a future for the genre? I believe so. But until a developer manages to recreate the charm of pre-2005 RTS games, we will be left with either Starcraft 2, or half-baked games made by developers who had too much pressure from their publishers to meet unrealistic deadlines.
I know this is not nostalgia. I can hit up Age of Empires and still have hours upon hours of fun. I do still regularly play through the WC3 campaign. These games just were that good, and made by developer teams that knew what they were doing and what their audience wanted. On top of that, they did not have to contend with the ridiculous deadlines set out by publishers anno 2014.
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On May 15 2014 06:32 maartendq wrote:
Personally, as a casual player, I have little to no reason to still play the game. I have finished both campaigns multiple times and when playing ladder I stress out more than I actually have fun. At the moment I'm not even sure if I will buy Legacy of the Void. I find Protoss to be an incredibly boring race to both play and watch, and the storyline of the past two SC2 iterations was anything but captivating.
* Team games
* Arcade
* Achievements
* Extension mods
* Map editor if you're the designer-type
If none of those do it for you, then sure. You're done with the game. But there are other things to do in SC2 besides campaign+1v1.
btw I also found the WC3 campaign very entertaining to play through over and over. But I also felt that way about WoL, personally felt like there was lots of replay value in that. (not so much HotS other than to get achievement points)
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On May 15 2014 06:48 frajen86 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 06:32 maartendq wrote:
Personally, as a casual player, I have little to no reason to still play the game. I have finished both campaigns multiple times and when playing ladder I stress out more than I actually have fun. At the moment I'm not even sure if I will buy Legacy of the Void. I find Protoss to be an incredibly boring race to both play and watch, and the storyline of the past two SC2 iterations was anything but captivating.
* Team games * Arcade * Achievements * Extension mods * Map editor if you're the designer-type If none of those do it for you, then sure. You're done with the game. But there are other things to do in SC2 besides campaign+1v1. btw I always found the WC3 campaign strangely entertaining to play through over and over. But I also felt that way about WoL, personally felt like there was lots of replay value in that. (not so much HotS other than to get achievement points)
* Team games: done those, plus I don't really have friends who enjoy playing starcraft
* Arcade: don't care
* Achievements: don't care
* Extension mods: not interested in those
* Map editor if you're the designer-type: alas, I'm not, and I don't have the time to learn.
WC3's campaign is just masterfully constructed. Even more so than WoL, in my opinion. The attention to detail was staggering at times. It helps that the graphics have aged incredibly well too.
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imo developing houses should focus on the trade off between macro and micro apm, because that's what has stagnated sc2 so quickly compared to BW.. if you can play sc2 with mbs/unlimited unit selection optimally at 200apm, you're going to be mechanically the same as the next player next to you with 200apm.. what made bw fun was having micro and macro players because the game was so ridiculously mechanically that players tended to favor micro or macro strats (outside of a purely strategic decision making perspective). it's cool to have a casual mode in an RTS like sc2 with mbs/UUS, but blizzard really should have considered a more traditional approach to ensure longevity among the competitive scene. obviously sc2's dev team has hundreds of other issues, but that's the main one that needs to be dealt with before a game can actually rival bw or sc2 imo.
and obviously it doesn't have to be "archaic" like brood war's 12 unit select, but it's not that hard to find an optimal unit selection cap to ensure a meaningful tradeoff between macro/micro/troop movement
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When did base building become boring? For me it has always been an integral part of my enjoyment of starcraft to nail perfect macro for so many minutes or see a pro have his build planned out to the vespene.
The early phase of starcraft is nowhere NEAR as repetitive and undynamic as the early game to league where the casters OFTEN struggle to find things to talk about.
Do people that appreciate the competitive aspects of starcaft really not like macro/base building? I just find this extremely, extremely hard to believe.
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On May 15 2014 05:48 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 05:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On May 15 2014 05:26 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 04:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Dustin is the game design lead for SC2, and he is going where the money is.
the expansion is taking so long its leading guys like u to make idle speculation.
Taking so long? One year has passed since the last one. We will hear about it at Blizzcon. You know nothing, JimmyJ! thanks for your big prediction. we can revisit this in November. i predict no LotV content @ Blizzcon 2014 and LOTS of MOBA content at Blizzcon 2014. the team is working on the MOBA not on LotV. now, just because i believe you are incorrect in this one fairly meaningless matter does not mean i'd extend that to a ridiculous degree by saying "you know nothing". i'll leave the baffoonery to you. Not of fan of Game of Thrones then? "baffoonery" lol It's not out the the realm of possibility that LOTV will not be at Blizzcon, but even so, it will come. Going all doomsday about it is strange considering we've had a game release just one year ago plus the unprecedented Blizzard involvement and financial support through WSC. If it were up to me i would overhaul SC2 in the next exp. and test the crap out of it for a 2016 release.
LOL, so now you're backing off of your prediction.
my prediction still stands.
i like SC2's competitive multiplayer as is. maybe some very small refinements in balance can be made. but, over all its good.
the job Blizzard did with SC2 outside of the area of competitive multiplayer is just incredible. the campaign is great., the arcade is great, the "galaxy builder" is great. i could keep listing stuff and just saying "great" 50 times.
over all, Browder and Kim can really be proud of what they've done.
the RTS game type doesn't make the kind of money many other genres do and we're lucky to have game designers like Browder and Kim who love the genre like we do.
we're all pretty luck Starcraft is Morhaime's favourite game.
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it just needs a f2p model. I wonder how C&C 4 is doing
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On May 15 2014 07:57 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 05:48 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 05:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On May 15 2014 05:26 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 04:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Dustin is the game design lead for SC2, and he is going where the money is.
the expansion is taking so long its leading guys like u to make idle speculation.
Taking so long? One year has passed since the last one. We will hear about it at Blizzcon. You know nothing, JimmyJ! thanks for your big prediction. we can revisit this in November. i predict no LotV content @ Blizzcon 2014 and LOTS of MOBA content at Blizzcon 2014. the team is working on the MOBA not on LotV. now, just because i believe you are incorrect in this one fairly meaningless matter does not mean i'd extend that to a ridiculous degree by saying "you know nothing". i'll leave the baffoonery to you. Not of fan of Game of Thrones then? "baffoonery" lol It's not out the the realm of possibility that LOTV will not be at Blizzcon, but even so, it will come. Going all doomsday about it is strange considering we've had a game release just one year ago plus the unprecedented Blizzard involvement and financial support through WSC. If it were up to me i would overhaul SC2 in the next exp. and test the crap out of it for a 2016 release. LOL, so now you're backing off of your prediction. my prediction still stands. i like SC2's competitive multiplayer as is. maybe some very small refinements in balance can be made. but, over all its good. the job Blizzard did with SC2 outside of the area of competitive multiplayer is just incredible. the campaign is great., the arcade is great, the "galaxy builder" is great. i could keep listing stuff and just saying "great" 50 times. over all, Browder and Kim can really be proud of what they've done. the RTS game type doesn't make the kind of money many other genres do and we're lucky to have game designers like Browder and Kim who love the genre like we do. we're all pretty luck Starcraft is Morhaime's favourite game.
Really?
Shareholders must have had their head if they heard about Blizz rebuffing Ice Frog for Dota and BroodWar's success in Korea is a cultural phenomenon. There is so much money on the table with their brand that it would be insane for them not to touch StarCraft. Unfortunately their execution has been poor and as evident from the crap units released with HoTS they are not budgeting enough staff to the game's development.
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On May 15 2014 08:25 Sabu113 wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 07:57 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On May 15 2014 05:48 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 05:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On May 15 2014 05:26 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 04:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Dustin is the game design lead for SC2, and he is going where the money is.
the expansion is taking so long its leading guys like u to make idle speculation.
Taking so long? One year has passed since the last one. We will hear about it at Blizzcon. You know nothing, JimmyJ! thanks for your big prediction. we can revisit this in November. i predict no LotV content @ Blizzcon 2014 and LOTS of MOBA content at Blizzcon 2014. the team is working on the MOBA not on LotV. now, just because i believe you are incorrect in this one fairly meaningless matter does not mean i'd extend that to a ridiculous degree by saying "you know nothing". i'll leave the baffoonery to you. Not of fan of Game of Thrones then? "baffoonery" lol It's not out the the realm of possibility that LOTV will not be at Blizzcon, but even so, it will come. Going all doomsday about it is strange considering we've had a game release just one year ago plus the unprecedented Blizzard involvement and financial support through WSC. If it were up to me i would overhaul SC2 in the next exp. and test the crap out of it for a 2016 release. LOL, so now you're backing off of your prediction. my prediction still stands. i like SC2's competitive multiplayer as is. maybe some very small refinements in balance can be made. but, over all its good. the job Blizzard did with SC2 outside of the area of competitive multiplayer is just incredible. the campaign is great., the arcade is great, the "galaxy builder" is great. i could keep listing stuff and just saying "great" 50 times. over all, Browder and Kim can really be proud of what they've done. the RTS game type doesn't make the kind of money many other genres do and we're lucky to have game designers like Browder and Kim who love the genre like we do. we're all pretty luck Starcraft is Morhaime's favourite game. Really? Shareholders must have had their head if they heard about Blizz rebuffing Ice Frog for Dota and BroodWar's success in Korea is a cultural phenomenon. There is so much money on the table with their brand that it would be insane for them not to touch StarCraft. Unfortunately their execution has been poor and as evident from the crap units released with HoTS they are not budgeting enough staff to the game's development.
Blizzard did way better with HotS units than they did with Broodwar units...Broodwar units really took a lot of the flow and depth out of the game and were way too "counter" instead of units that gave an edge. (Note, valks, devourers, and corsair were all designed as hard counters; lurkers were designed as hard counters, and medics...ugh...) I personally like the hellbat, viper, and mothership core that came with HotS although the tempest, swarmhost, and widow mine are not so fun). Sorry, StarCraft 2 is one of the most successful games ever released and also is probably more successful than any game as an esport before StarCraft 2.
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Northern Ireland26427 Posts
Well that's one I haven't heard before
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On May 15 2014 08:44 Eliezar wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 08:25 Sabu113 wrote:On May 15 2014 07:57 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On May 15 2014 05:48 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 05:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On May 15 2014 05:26 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 04:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Dustin is the game design lead for SC2, and he is going where the money is.
the expansion is taking so long its leading guys like u to make idle speculation.
Taking so long? One year has passed since the last one. We will hear about it at Blizzcon. You know nothing, JimmyJ! thanks for your big prediction. we can revisit this in November. i predict no LotV content @ Blizzcon 2014 and LOTS of MOBA content at Blizzcon 2014. the team is working on the MOBA not on LotV. now, just because i believe you are incorrect in this one fairly meaningless matter does not mean i'd extend that to a ridiculous degree by saying "you know nothing". i'll leave the baffoonery to you. Not of fan of Game of Thrones then? "baffoonery" lol It's not out the the realm of possibility that LOTV will not be at Blizzcon, but even so, it will come. Going all doomsday about it is strange considering we've had a game release just one year ago plus the unprecedented Blizzard involvement and financial support through WSC. If it were up to me i would overhaul SC2 in the next exp. and test the crap out of it for a 2016 release. LOL, so now you're backing off of your prediction. my prediction still stands. i like SC2's competitive multiplayer as is. maybe some very small refinements in balance can be made. but, over all its good. the job Blizzard did with SC2 outside of the area of competitive multiplayer is just incredible. the campaign is great., the arcade is great, the "galaxy builder" is great. i could keep listing stuff and just saying "great" 50 times. over all, Browder and Kim can really be proud of what they've done. the RTS game type doesn't make the kind of money many other genres do and we're lucky to have game designers like Browder and Kim who love the genre like we do. we're all pretty luck Starcraft is Morhaime's favourite game. Really? Shareholders must have had their head if they heard about Blizz rebuffing Ice Frog for Dota and BroodWar's success in Korea is a cultural phenomenon. There is so much money on the table with their brand that it would be insane for them not to touch StarCraft. Unfortunately their execution has been poor and as evident from the crap units released with HoTS they are not budgeting enough staff to the game's development. Blizzard did way better with HotS units than they did with Broodwar units...Broodwar units really took a lot of the flow and depth out of the game and were way too "counter" instead of units that gave an edge. (Note, valks, devourers, and corsair were all designed as hard counters; lurkers were designed as hard counters, and medics...ugh...) I personally like the hellbat, viper, and mothership core that came with HotS although the tempest, swarmhost, and widow mine are not so fun). Sorry, StarCraft 2 is one of the most successful games ever released and also is probably more successful than any game as an esport before StarCraft 2.
Valks devourers and sairs are designed as hard counters yes, but they're also inefficient versus everything else. Having those units gives each race an option to beat mass air, I don't see how that's bad. The other counters can all be dealt with through good micro e.g. marine splitting versus lurkers and plague versus medics.
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What we really need is a better AI that can take care of the mundane economy-building stuff while the human focuses on the overarching strategy/tactics. Similar to Madden NFL, where the AI controls most of the players on the field, but the human controls the play and whichever character who happens to have the ball.
Minor examples:
Auto-inject or creep spread for queens.
Auto-production for barracks, factory, command centers and nexi.
When units spawn they automatically attack-move to their rally points.
These are easy fixes that I'm surprised Blizzard didn't implement.
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Have you guys played Natural Selection 2?
It's like an FPS TvZ basically, with 1 commander (rts POV) and 5 soldiers/zerglings on each side. Basically you build resource nodes and try to kill the enemy's resource nodes, those nodes produce income over time that can be spent on stuff like shotguns or even jetpacks.
From the commander POV it's like an RTS except your scvs/marines are real people.
The premise sounded SOOOO GOOD but the game only had limited success. I really don't understand why-- it's casual friendly (just hop in and shoot aliens and follow the team), etc.
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Northern Ireland26427 Posts
On May 15 2014 08:50 marigoldran wrote:
What we really need is a better AI that can take care of the mundane economy-building stuff while the human focuses on the overarching strategy/tactics. Similar to Madden NFL, where the AI controls most of the players on the field, but the human controls the play and whichever character who happens to have the ball.
Minor examples:
Auto-inject or creep spread for queens.
Auto-production for barracks, factory, command centers and nexi.
When units spawn they automatically attack-move to their rally points.
These are easy fixes that I'm surprised Blizzard didn't implement.
For me personally that would take away what I quite like about Starcraft I mean it's not for me to speak for others though.
Here probably isn't the best place given average poster, I'd like to see though let's say if you take SC2 as a starting point, would people be in favour of making future RTS games less or more mechanically demanding.
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Well, that attitude of yours is part of the reason Starcraft 2 is less popular than LOL. If the goal is to make the game a greater commercial success, than it needs to be made more accessible.
I'm a diamond player btw. In reality probably closer to high Plat/low diamond, but I beat someone called ByunPrime on the American ladder with an early roach attack against one-base hellion cheese and I jumped to high diamond from mid plat.
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They should also add in auto-build features for scvs and probes.
Your job as the human is to manage the big picture and let the AI do the grunt work. Instead of controlling everything, the human should simply control issues like: "Should the scv auto-build a factory or a barracks?" "Should the barracks be auto-building marines or marauders?" "Should I tell my command center to stop building scvs so I have more money for marines?" "Where should I send my scv to scout?" Etc.
This will make starcraft more like chess, and less like hectic button-spamming.
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On May 15 2014 07:57 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 05:48 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 05:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On May 15 2014 05:26 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 04:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Dustin is the game design lead for SC2, and he is going where the money is.
the expansion is taking so long its leading guys like u to make idle speculation.
Taking so long? One year has passed since the last one. We will hear about it at Blizzcon. You know nothing, JimmyJ! thanks for your big prediction. we can revisit this in November. i predict no LotV content @ Blizzcon 2014 and LOTS of MOBA content at Blizzcon 2014. the team is working on the MOBA not on LotV. now, just because i believe you are incorrect in this one fairly meaningless matter does not mean i'd extend that to a ridiculous degree by saying "you know nothing". i'll leave the baffoonery to you. Not of fan of Game of Thrones then? "baffoonery" lol It's not out the the realm of possibility that LOTV will not be at Blizzcon, but even so, it will come. Going all doomsday about it is strange considering we've had a game release just one year ago plus the unprecedented Blizzard involvement and financial support through WSC. If it were up to me i would overhaul SC2 in the next exp. and test the crap out of it for a 2016 release. LOL, so now you're backing off of your prediction. my prediction still stands. i like SC2's competitive multiplayer as is. maybe some very small refinements in balance can be made. but, over all its good. the job Blizzard did with SC2 outside of the area of competitive multiplayer is just incredible. the campaign is great., the arcade is great, the "galaxy builder" is great. i could keep listing stuff and just saying "great" 50 times. over all, Browder and Kim can really be proud of what they've done. the RTS game type doesn't make the kind of money many other genres do and we're lucky to have game designers like Browder and Kim who love the genre like we do. we're all pretty luck Starcraft is Morhaime's favourite game.
I don't make predictions, i give opinions.
Blizzard fucked up big, big time with SC2 on a number of levels that still hunt them today. One of the most important ones being the terrible Bnet that the game came out with. This alone acted as a great deterrent for the casuals and it took Blizz years to understand and somewhat rectify the problem, most likely to late. HOTS was also a missed opportunity to fix fundamental problems with the game and this again is seen in the numbers: people see there not being enough of an evolution and leave. LOTV is the last chance. I can go on and on about all the missed opportunities and mistakes made by Blizzard that lead to the game not being as popular as it could have been (the way they handled the Korean scene is another big mistake).
I'm glad you like the game so much, but there are many fans, pro players, ex pro players, map makers, team owners, casters, etc that are super frustrated by the lack of communication and action from Blizz in changing and improving key aspects of the game.
I think i've said all there is to say about it. If you keep repeating the same stuff over and over then we'll agree to disagree.
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One of the reasons I'm not playing the game as much is because on multi-player it's too damn stressful. Other friends feel the same way.
With the laddering system, Blizzard made it too competitive.
On of the draws of the original B-net is that you could suck and not know that you sucked. If everyone else sucked too, and you did ok against everyone else, you'd think you were a decent player.
With the Starcraft 2 B-net system, if you sucked that means everyone including yourself knows you suck because you'd be stuck in Bronze.
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On May 15 2014 09:13 Sapphire.lux wrote:Show nested quote +On May 15 2014 07:57 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On May 15 2014 05:48 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 05:39 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On May 15 2014 05:26 Sapphire.lux wrote:On May 15 2014 04:32 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Dustin is the game design lead for SC2, and he is going where the money is.
the expansion is taking so long its leading guys like u to make idle speculation.
Taking so long? One year has passed since the last one. We will hear about it at Blizzcon. You know nothing, JimmyJ! thanks for your big prediction. we can revisit this in November. i predict no LotV content @ Blizzcon 2014 and LOTS of MOBA content at Blizzcon 2014. the team is working on the MOBA not on LotV. now, just because i believe you are incorrect in this one fairly meaningless matter does not mean i'd extend that to a ridiculous degree by saying "you know nothing". i'll leave the baffoonery to you. Not of fan of Game of Thrones then? "baffoonery" lol It's not out the the realm of possibility that LOTV will not be at Blizzcon, but even so, it will come. Going all doomsday about it is strange considering we've had a game release just one year ago plus the unprecedented Blizzard involvement and financial support through WSC. If it were up to me i would overhaul SC2 in the next exp. and test the crap out of it for a 2016 release. LOL, so now you're backing off of your prediction. my prediction still stands. i like SC2's competitive multiplayer as is. maybe some very small refinements in balance can be made. but, over all its good. the job Blizzard did with SC2 outside of the area of competitive multiplayer is just incredible. the campaign is great., the arcade is great, the "galaxy builder" is great. i could keep listing stuff and just saying "great" 50 times. over all, Browder and Kim can really be proud of what they've done. the RTS game type doesn't make the kind of money many other genres do and we're lucky to have game designers like Browder and Kim who love the genre like we do. we're all pretty luck Starcraft is Morhaime's favourite game. I don't make predictions, i give opinions. Blizzard fucked up big, big time with SC2 on a number of levels that still hunt them today. One of the most important ones being the terrible Bnet that the game came out with. This alone acted as a great deterrent for the casuals and it took Blizz years to understand and somewhat rectify the problem, most likely to late. HOTS was also a missed opportunity to fix fundamental problems with the game and this again is seen in the numbers: people see there not being enough of an evolution and leave. LOTV is the last chance. I can go on and on about all the missed opportunities and mistakes made by Blizzard that lead to the game not being as popular as it could have been (the way they handled the Korean scene is another big mistake). I'm glad you like the game so much, but there are many fans, pro players, ex pro players, map makers, team owners, casters, etc that are super frustrated by the lack of communication and action from Blizz in changing and improving key aspects of the game. I think i've said all there is to say about it. If you keep repeating the same stuff over and over then we'll agree to disagree.
No offense but you said we will hear about lotv in blizcon 2014 and that's a prediction
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Has anyone mentioned Supreme Commander yet? I believe it has a whole new depth to bring into the RTS genre. Look it up when you get the time.
Let's look at the core differences between Starcraft and Supreme Commander. I'll only mention the advantages each one has over the other, not the disadvantages.
SC:
-More mico-focused
-More APM-focused
-Fast-paced (compared to supreme commander)
-Depth in units comes mostly from their abilities (stimpacks, spells, etc.) as well as micro interactions (marines vs banelings, roach/ling vs protoss 2base allins).
-Extremely spectator friendly (action-packed, multiple fights, less buildup, common harass, fun micromanagement)
-Racial mechanics pose interesting interactions for newer players
-Resources: an economic (minerals) and tech (gas) for easy understanding. More basic stuff for newbies/spectators
-More chances to come back from loss -- You have time to remax usually, counterattacks have long travel distance, only disadvantage is army/position loss.
-Highly multitask-oriented macromanagement.
Supreme Commander:
-Physics simulation: every tank, every bullet, every missile is simulated in the engine.
-Depth of units comes from the physics engine (aurora's fast turn speed, speed difference interceptors vs bombers vs platform crafft, Walls blocking shots)
-Big armies: 1000 unit cap
-Big units: 4 tech levels, with experimentals that are called "game-enders" for a reason
-Resources: a finite (Mass), infinite (energy) and manipulable (time). Allows for complex strategies, plays can be made with economic buildings alone
-Intelligence warfare: more interesting ways to scout
-Naval warfare, why not
-TEAM PLAY. The infamous Seton's Clutch, a great 4v4 RTS map
-Somewhat automated macromanagement, takes away the repetitive parts but lets you make your own base from scratch still.
Between the two, neither one has more strategic depth than the other. Starcraft is all about quick reading and quick thinking, while SupCom is more about planning a situation and carrying it out, manipulating your resources in creative ways to meet your goal. SupCom games generally last a little longer, and if they don't then it was often over in one or two early fights.
The main advantage SupCom has over starcraft? Seton's Clutch. That was probably the best 4v4 map in any RTS, with cool team roles, huge battles, and ridiculous strategic depth. Those games lasted for hours and they were FUN. No game has made me feel more intelligent or strategic than supreme commander has.
The main advantage Starcraft has over SupCom: Spectator friendly- mechanics. Frankly, supreme commander is boring as all hell to watch, it's too slow because that's the appropriate speed for when you're playing. Also, being good at starcraft is much more impressive than being good at supreme commander.
All in all, both games can learn from each other, and I believe that the next big RTS may be a mix between the two. Frankly, it looks like all the attention SupCom has garnered has all went to Planetary Annihilation, which is a real shame because I feel like that game takes everything cool about SupCom and generally dumps all over it. There's no need to change RTS fundamentally to make it more popular, it's just going to need to pick the best aspects from these two games and turn them into one. Then we might see a new killer RTS.
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EPT
