EPTBlizzard plays it safe.
Starcraft II can become many things. Groundbreaking is not one of them. Super PLAYs Tommy Rydling has as the first Swede played Blizzards vision of future real time strategy – and thinks it feels remarkably familiar.
Terrans.
We got to see but not to touch the human warriors in Starcraft II. Here is what we know that’s worth knowing about them. Some things are old acquaintances and some are new ones.
Viking Fighter
Say hi to the Terrans own transformer. The Viking can change form from airship to a walking robot. Shrewd if you are flying to an enemy base and get attacked by anti air defense.
Supply Depot
New in the earthlings base: a building that can pack down itself and sink under ground so hat your units can pass. Works nicely as a first blockage to your base at an early stage.
Marine
Starcraft would not be anything without its marines, which is the backbone in the Terran army.
[b]Planetary Fortress/[b]
Terran headquarter can be upgraded to a Planetary Fortress. It’s a headquarter with a hell of a lot of defensive weapons on it.
Thor
The newest guy is named Thor and has got his name from the god of thunder. A buddy of these this can put down a whole base by himself.
Sensor Dome
With one of these sensors you can see enemy units on the map even if they are moving in undetected areas.
Ghost
Yep. The Ghost is back again.
Protoss
Twillight Archon:
Sacrifice two Dark Templars and you’ve got the even meaner Twillight Archon. But you probably already knew that.
High Templar:
He’s a bit familiar, right?
Dark Templar:
Damn Dark Templars. The second game was over in exaclt 15 minutes when a german ran in with three invisible Dark Templars into my base a demolished most of it. I had not had any time to build any Oversser, that can detect invisible units.
-Can the fortress attack air targets too or only ground targets?
-How many troops can a transport carry?
- Are there any units that can avoid the sensor?
The questions are swooshing past the heads of the Blizzard representatives who has just demonstrated Starcraft II before we get to play it our self. But the questions are a bit odd. Especially because they are coming directly after the demonstration of such a hot game from the worlds maybe most beloved game developers. They are all about game balance. Numbers. What ship is the most effective against this. Which weapons works best against that. Which units can become invisible. What can put down mines and how much damage do the mines do if you shoot them at range and happens to have one of your own units nearby of the explosion – less than if you happen to walk on the mines by mistake, or?
The questions are actually only interesting because they unveil what an incredible conventional sequel Starcraft II is. In a genre that has not seen any major innovation since it was introduced, Blizzard are strongly determined to not be those who breaks the trend. It is strongly expressed in the project description to not be too creative. But there will be new transport units in any case- that will be able to carry up to five infantry units.
Now I’m neither one of Blizzards most loyal fans who would eat shit if it had the right logo or one of those who thinks a game must be groundbreaking to own a it’s right to exist. But after repeatedly been getting royal multiplayer spanking from my more or less Starcraft oriented journalist colleagues can I soberly point out that Starcraft II in the end can be either way. Without playing the finished version I know diminishly little about the game balance, and in a RTS it’s the only thing that counts.
The first game
In my premiere game I’m totally lost because I don’t know which units are good for what. But I’ve always been a sucker for flying units and decided to go wholeheartedly for the strongest Protoss airship: The Mothership.
I take a look at the games highly temporarily technology tree that looks like something I could have done in Paint. Nothing is final yet, that’s what pre-alfa means. But I build myself a Stargate and the needed upgrades to be able to build my gigantic mothership. And I gather sick amounts of resources so I can upgrade the mothership twice to get the new attacks Planet Scorch and Black Hole.
I build a couple of tempest as support and glides majestically out from my comfort zone – and immediately bumps into a patrol. Jim Rossignol from the English PC Format has a whole armada of tempest. And his own mothership! A wild dogfight starts and I’m forced to retreat with a smoking mothership back to my homebase. Luckily Jim turns away and halts his attack. Maybe because I have built several defensive cannons. With lightning speed I heal my mothership by sacrificing all its mana points, that slowly regenerates. Just in time when it’s like new Jim comes back, with a mothership and everything. For the first time I try my black hole. And here it seems like Blizzard has got a balancing issue right to solve. The hole sucks all of Jims ships, including his mothership, and leaves him completely empty handed just within a few seconds. I believe he hasn’t got much left now, so I head out for to plunder with my airunits. I find three spread out bases that I wipe out without any resistance. I feel like a king. Flies around a bit more, and stiffen with my winning grin when I fly in to a enemy base that I’ve missed. There my opponent has gathered enough vehicles to crush my mothership and then bring the fight to me in my now undefended home base. I have just been flying around like a looser without continuing to build any new war toys. After that the process becomes rather short. Anyhow it was fun that the game turned around so abruptly at the end. And the 53 minute long replay was interesting to watch at the fastest replay speed. The Blizzard PR-responsible did not even know that the replay function was implemented yet, but I can hereby rapport that it works splendidly.
The second game
In game number two I’m going to get the mothership again, as fast as I can. Now I’ve learnt the technology tree. Fourteen minutes into the game – about a minute before my mothership was done I see a big blur in my base and hear a warning that I’m under attack. Dark Templars! Because I don’t have any cannon towers or an overseer I can not even make my units attack the permanently invisible units. He chops down my most important pylons that gives energy supply to the buildings in my base and he brings group of stalkers. Well… Thanks and goodnight.
Some general impressions from the worlds first online games of Starcraft II (except all the internal games between Blizzard employees): Everything was familiar. The interface is already in this early pre-alfa-stadium a wonder of plainness. Would Blizzard decide to use this interface in the final product I would not complain. I’m particularly happy about the idle buttons that reveals lazy workers that don’t collecting or building anything.
The Vespene gas and the minerals that are being gathered are the same as before and works the same as before. Remember: do not scare away the fans!
Blizzard are repeatedly saying that Starcraft II will not invent the wheel again. Maybe that’s why its remarkably easy to get into it. Already at this early stage, I guess 2 or three years until it’s released, it’s possible to play big multiplayer games without any problems. The hotkeys are were they are supposed to be and all the info you would ever need are either shown in static textboxes or in popup windows when I click on a building or a unit. Blizzard simply wants to make a tight and action packed real time strategy game where they can use all the experience they have gathered trough all these years. With enough time, right resources and the right game balance it will succeed. And the Starcraft fans will overjoyed – I saw four or five of them almost fainting today when they noticed you could move the cannons in your base. For a hardcore gamer a small change can be enormous. And can be everything that is needed. I took the games main producer Chris Sigaty and the lead designer Dustin Browder to the side to ask those questions that were not about armor, ammunition and fire speed.
How come that you have decided to make Starcraft II at this moment in time?
Chris: The right place in the right time. Our team had just finished Warcraft II and The Frozen Throne and we talked about what we were going to do next. We felt that the technology was there, to be able to show that many units on the screen and everything else we wanted to do with Starcraft II. It was simply about that we wanted to do it, nothing tactical planned or something like that. We always knew we wanted to make it. The question was just when.
There are so many RTS coming or that has recently been released. How come? Personally I thinks it’s a fantastic genre.
Dustin: It’s a very living genre with a huge and passionate consumer base. You always see RTS games on the top 10-list – the good ones.
Is it just me who thinks the RTS genre is a bit stalled? Nothing has happened in genre for a long time?
Chris: I think the reason that the RTS-genre keeps living is because people likes it. Not because it invents new things.
Dustin: And the games basic design – what units and buildings there are, wat races, how the terrain works, how you gather the resources – all of that has such a huge impact on the gaming experience. So from a very high levels they look similar, but when you are actually playing so are Supreme Commander not Company of Heroes and not Command and Conquer and not Starcraft II. They are very different gaming experiences.
So how will Starcraft II be different from the first one as a gaming experience?
Chris: What weare doing is actually a new interpreting of the first game so that it feels familiar but gives a very different gaming experience.
Dustin: We are trying to make a game that is substantially more dynamic than the original and has a lot strategic depth. I know there’s a fraction who asks where the new stuff is. The new Gizmo. But one of the things we decided from the start was to not make any new stuff just because.
Was Starcraft II ever in theory something more radical than what you are making now?
Chris: Nej. It was of course in discussion, but every sequel have to look back in some way, otherwise it will scare away the fans of the original that passionately likes it. If we decided to make anything else than Starcraft II it would have been something more special.
Dustin: It’s about how you make a game fun instead of pasting new things just to make people feel that itäs something new. If the game is fun you will like it and keep playing it.
So what are you doing to appeal to those who have not played the first game?
Dustin: As usual we have many plans. We can’t talk about it right now, but we have several ideas for the single player campaign that will be an excellent playground for casual gamers. Then we also have magnificent plans for Battle.net that really open up the online possibilities for those who have maybe not tried RTS online but have wanted to.
The problem is that if you fuck up the game balance it doesn’t matted what you do with the rest. Then you have a broken game and everyone will see it.
Chris. Sure
Dustin: Yeah, totally
So how will you make the balance perfect?
Chris: We are working with some ex e-sport gamers, and we will bring several of these kind of guys so we get a balanced team of gentlemen from here and the other side of the Atlantic. It some of the worlds best gamers that can help us balance the game and we will use them in the beta as we always do. It will be a big advantage in the balancing process.
Dustin: But on the other hand we are well aware of the casual gamers experienced the first Starcraft. They played trough the campaign and though “ Fun! I’ll log and play an online game!”. Then it was just: “OH MY GOD!” and they were completely overrun. Of course that’s no fun. We are defiantly aware about them and there a few things in the system that we will take a look at.
Chris: We have got a big base of fans who are coming directly from World of Warcraft. They might want to try out Starcraft II and we want to at least make it reasonably accessible to them.
What kind of fans do you actually have?
Chris: I think we got the whole spectrum. We got the really hardcore fans who are more of Blizzard fans than a special genre. They are kind of on the Blizzard wagon and we have not disappointed them yet. Then I think we have a lot of people who have met us for the first time trough World of Warcraft. Then we got the extreme gamers who are specified on a special genre. The RTS-guys are really fanatical, and out goal is of course to appeal all these group and be kind and thoughtful to them.
So how big are the fans expectations on Starcraft II
Chris: Insanely huge, I like to point out. The funniest from the demonstration in Korea was that someone in the audience filmed it and you could hear the audience reactions we zoomed in on the zealot they just “Wow!” I shiver and gets goose bumps when I’m watching it. It’s part of a glance of our fans, even if that is Korea, of course.
But you are not making anything on the console side. Why?
Chris: The biggest problem for us is the interface. There’s been done some interesting experiments in this field, but we are not ready for it. We still have several questions marks regarding user interface there.
Dustin: And we do not have time for it. We must make everything right with this game. It will be hard enough.
Maybe you don’t have enough experience too? No have not developed anything for consoles before
Chris: If we wanted to we could probably do it. But that a console player would be able to play against a PC player at the same level… I can not really see that. And for us it is so much about building the community as well, so it is defiantly not topic to get any console version.
[b] I loved Red Alert and played it a lot. But with all the expansion it got to a point to where more units made it less fun.[b]
[Agreeing nodding]
So what is your philosophy regarding the number of units?
Dustin: I do not know the exact number of units we will have, but not that many. Our general philosophy is that when we add something we will also remove something. We try to make every unit unique. We want to make everything different from each other. That all the things have its own rules and are special. And I think that will set the roof. If we can do that with 50 units we will do it. Otherwise we will do it with less.
So what are you hoping to accomplish with the second game that you didn’t do in the first?
Chris: One thing is diversity. With the first game the big thing was the three races. People are asking us if we will add a fourth race now? No. It is very hard to with three unique races. In Warcraft III we had four races. But they were similar to each other in many ways. Now we are trying to make them more distinctive. And to make the game available for those who comes online and usually just gets “Bksscch!!!! Owned!” We want to avoid that and improve those possibilities. Those are probably examples of things we did not know how to do before but that we have learnt about from making Warcraft III.
Will you use any experience from World of Warcraft in the progress of making Starcraft II?
Chris_ One of the things that we learned from World of Warcraft, except how to grow like crazy, is the whole community thing, with a whole team taking care of that stuff. To the gamers the possibilities to just hang with each other. World of Warcraft is big because of that area and we want to bring the community thinking here and this game bigger than just itself.
I’m almost scared to ask this, but when will the game be released?
Chris: When it comes to the release date we have historically been taking three and a half to four years from the first notice of the game to final release. We are planning to be far more ambitious this time, but I’m not making any promises.
Hard facts about Starcraft II
When will it be released?:
“When it is done.” Earliest 2008. Hopefully before 2010.
What did you get to play?:
Four player games, protoss against protoss, on two different maps.
How many and what races will there be?:
Three. Zerg, protoss and terran, just like in Starcraft
No fourth race?
No.
How many players will be able to play in the same multiplayer game?
At least eight
What format will it be released on?
Mac and PC, simultaneously
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