StarCraft II release date finalized

Hee Hee...I like the photo, so I've saved it to display it on my new LED backlit screen netbook:)

The Apollo spacecraft was not perfect though, it damn broke on half dozen occassions.

Those games you mentioned, whilst excellent games, do not even make the list of greatest franchises of all time, whereas a game that is 12 years old does. In fact, as far as I can see, it is the ONLY RTS to be on that list. All these years later and it is STILL considered the best RTS ever.

You'd be stupid to tinker with such an award winning formula as that!

As for your disgruntlement as to why it took them 10+ years to bring them out without any major mechanical changes in the game. Well, maybe they're not interested in flooding the market like other franchises (CoD, Guitar Hero etc). Maybe, throughout those 10 years, they've been doing their research and, shock horror, decided that the current formula is just too great to mess with. Doesn't mean that they didn't think about it though, which is what you seem to be insinuating.

quote walnuts

TBH though, how do you improve perfection? Starcraft, and more importantly Brood War, was so well balanced that it is still the preminent RTS to this date in my humble opinion. If it was perfect the first time around, why mess around with the game mechanics the second time? It's all downhill if you start messing with the game mechanics on such a perfect game.

I just don't understand why people say that 'Oh, it's not that much different to the original'. Wasn't the original awesome? If so, then this would be in the same category, no?

Dear sir, shall we bring back the Apollo space rocket for our next mission since it was perfect enough to get us to the moon and back?

There is something called modernization, there are a lot of new RTS that have innovated the genre and made certain mechanics a standard that SC2 does not utilize. See supreme commander 2, RUSE, Total War etc...

How could anyone agree 10 years is worth only refinements when gaming generations occur every 5 and new blockbusters occur every 2.

10 years begets an experience that brings the genre forward and doesnt sit on the fact that it was perfect in 1998. I'm sorry peoples tastes have evolved, perfection in 1998 is not perfection in 2010 or 2011, the Apollo spacecraft is not appropriate at all for 2010.

Do I get a cookie now?

edit: and sorry to bring Avatar into this but I must - it took 15 years to "write" it he says, and what we got was at the minimum forgettable characters and dialog and at the most the most overrated Sci-Fi film ever. time =/= quality I think SC2 took so long because they couldnt think of anything new. But they wanted money so the green light went on. hello hollywood.

quote DarkLordAkuma

@Walnuts - Our idea of perfection changes when technology itself advances at such a rapid pace, some people may have called Starcraft the perfect RTS like 5-10 years ago, but now i wouldnt be so sure.

The balance is as close as perfect as you can get with a 3-race RTS, which is what he was referring to. Even with all the fancy graphics and advanced AI of recent times, no RTS comes close to Brood War in that regard. Balance is one of the most important elements of any RTS game. Why do you think that even after 12 years, BW still has 20,000+ online at any given moment, and is the only game in the world with an established professional scene?

quote DarkLordAkuma

@AznLiquid - I dont think you would call it "doing nothing" seeing as people that do this are trying to fast tech to the higher tiers as quickly as possible. Its a strategy, its not "doing nothing". I can see why people are annoyed that its harder to do in this due to the fact that base defence is pretty shocking.

Sitting in your base, not even sending a scout while trying to tech to better units without building anything else, is not a viable strategy, you're practically doing nothing. Why should they be annoyed just because they can't adapt to other people? That's the whole point of strategy games, you're supposed to have a good outline of a build in your head, and adjust it according to whatever your opponent is doing.

I'm also in the beta at the moment and think this game is going to be *bleep*ing amazing when released. Although, i do have a couple of gripes.

@Walnuts - Our idea of perfection changes when technology itself advances at such a rapid pace, some people may have called Starcraft the perfect RTS like 5-10 years ago, but now i wouldnt be so sure.

@AznLiquid - I dont think you would call it "doing nothing" seeing as people that do this are trying to fast tech to the higher tiers as quickly as possible. Its a strategy, its not "doing nothing". I can see why people are annoyed that its harder to do in this due to the fact that base defence is pretty shocking.

quote bruceleethree

What really sucks is how nothing has changed about rushing except the fact people can do it faster more now than ever. Literally every match you get rushed, and if you like to Turtle this GAME IS NOT TURTLE FRIENDLY.

Obviously, if you sit in your base doing nothing, people are going to take advantage of that. Starcraft is a game about countering your opponent, not sitting in your base for 15 minutes. If I see sometime skipping out on unit production for a faster economy boost, I'm going to pressure him with early units.

Why would any RTS ever reward a player who does nothing?

i loved playing whit my brother we would decide on a time limit that we had to build up and then all bets were off

Awesome news! This made my day!

As long as I don't get matched up against Koreans. I hope they have a no-rush rule thing, like other games have had, like 5 minutes or 10 until you can attack.

Oh you may be right, but what I'm saying is that I do not see how it took them this long to make the game, from what I've seen.

Personally I'd prefer them keeping more the same then trying anything new, but they haven't really refined the game play all that much have they? They haven't even brought in hardly any new units (from what I've seen.)

I mean you don't want to pull an EA and wreck your beloved rts franchise by fundamentally changing the game and simplifying it, or make a new fps sequel to a beloved strategy game like 2K is doing, but over the span of 10 years I would have thought that Blizzard would have changed more stuff.

I hope a Blackthorne 2 comes out.

Battle.net 2.0 seems awfully cool. Should make an addictive experience even more addictive.

quote chautemoc

Familiarity is a strength, sometimes. The necessity (debatable of course) for a sequel in these cases comes from refinements (rather than large changes), updated graphics and in some cases, an opportunity to tell a new story.

That's personally how I see it. It gives a chance to expand on the storyline already laid down in the original, whilst giving us the multiplayer gameplay that we all know and love.

Familiarity is a strength, sometimes. The necessity (debatable of course) for a sequel in these cases comes from refinements (rather than large changes), updated graphics and in some cases, an opportunity to tell a new story.

TBH though, how do you improve perfection? Starcraft, and more importantly Brood War, was so well balanced that it is still the preminent RTS to this date in my humble opinion. If it was perfect the first time around, why mess around with the game mechanics the second time? It's all downhill if you start messing with the game mechanics on such a perfect game.

I just don't understand why people say that 'Oh, it's not that much different to the original'. Wasn't the original awesome? If so, then this would be in the same category, no?