PlaneShift
Fan Area => The Hydlaa Plaza => Topic started by: Cha0s on May 19, 2007, 10:25:30 am
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At long last. Thank you Blizzard. Anyone else love Starcraft out there? Report and screens from IGN are available here (http://pc.ign.com/articles/788/788627p1.html). Seeing as I don't know anything else, I'll cease typing and let everyone go read and ogle the screenshots. :)
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And in case anyone asks:
http://blizzard.com/
(love the comment)
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:D Finally, I cant imagine why it has taken them so long, starcraft must have been fantastically popular when it was new. I would have thought Blizzard of all companies would have cashed in on it a long time ago. Im glad they finally got off their butts :)
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its very shiney.
and in 2 years time, "universe of Starcraft", their mmo.
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http://www.starcraft2.com/
is now updated with screenshots/unit info/moives etc.
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Just heard about that. Funny they advertize it on WoW's launcher. I might check it out.
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I'm tired of the old RTS formula with better graphics, I prefer the tactical depth of a game like Ground Control over zerging "strategies" based purely on numbers.
Didn't read it yet, so will it follow up with the same old gameplay and have better graphics or will it be different?
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psst
helps if you Watch some gameplay (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJDFw4TGWmo&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmyextralife%2Ecom%2F)
to see theres going to a more of a tactical feel then the old zerg rush...
Although i still do love kerrigen >.>
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Starcraft's Zergs = Starship Troopers' Bugs = Warhammer 40k's Tyrannids
In fact, some propagandaesque FMVs seem like rip offs from Starship Troopers - *cough* UED Victory Report *cough*.
Now about the game itself:
For now, I will remain skeptic like the following guy that commented on it, I didn't see anything that can "rock the boat". I am yet to see something superior to my favorite RTS, Ground Control 1(World at War may or not achieve that), and yeah, I am one who dislikes the building part of a RTS, I prefer games that go "straight to combat" where cannon fodder tactics tend to fail and having veterans makes a true difference.
why, does it not have any new races? why, does it look nothing like a new game? Were they trying to make their biggest following (Korea) happy by giving it the same look as the first? As i have seen it from the screen shots, it looks like nothing has changed To me it feels like an Expansion Pack and nothing more. As all i have seen are a few new units, which I don't To me its nothing more than starcraft with an updated engine.
Although i still do love kerrigen >.>
Warning: Spoiler for those who didn't play but intend to play Starcraft 1 on he following link -
Remember who is to blame for what happened to her...
"Let no terran make war upon any other terran"
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lKqhYXB5ts)
BTW, is there any reason for the "communistic" look of the Terran Dominion and Sons of Korhal symbol?
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no resource management means it's a tactical game, not an rts.
Personally I'm kinda dissapointed in the cartoonish style Blizzard has adopted since their move to 3d engines. I was hoping Starcraft 2 would be different art wise, but oh well. I look forward to it regardless... but christ that siege tank is ugly.
Gameplay wise it sounds like exactly what I wanted though, starcraft but bigger and better.
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Indeed, damn "cartoony" style. I sure do hope Starcraft 2 won't be close to what we've already seen. Everything (almost, though the chosen colors make me say everything) looks made by a 12 y.o. child and yeah, the siege tank is ridiculous.
RTS = Real Time Strategy, that means a strategy game which "flows" real time. Resources might exist, might not, same goes for let's say advanced tactics.
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strategy is control over a theater of war with lots of units... tractical is control over a combat zone with a small group of units... without resources of some kind I don't think you can really have 'strategic' control...
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I "HATE" people who judge a game by cartoony graphics.. its a style of graphic and no a 12 year old could not replicate it not unless the child has been locked away and whiped to do nothing be graphical design.
Not every god damn game has to look like real life, sometimes ( a shock to some ) games are supposed to be an escape from reality
I bet your the same pains in the butt that moaned when Zelda: the wind waker came out
>:|
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I'm only hoping that Starcraft 2 will be different enough from Starcraft to justify buying it. If it basically has the same units, abilities and gameplay but with a new engine and graphics then I'm not so sure I'll be very impressed. I liked the first game though.
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I didn't say a 12 y.o. child can replicate. I said a 12 y.o. child made it. Anyway, I might think at the first images of Warcraft 3 that were made public, they were cartoony, though the final product was far from that.
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Lets hope :)
Starcraft was a pretty dark game (artwise) I feel so cartoony looks really don't suit the sequal in my book. Doesn't mean cartoony is always bad Seperot, but I don't really feel Zelda games ever had a dark feel to it.
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Pretty much how I feel on the matter, starcraft was a very 'grown up' game... seems like they're trying to appeal to broader audiences and such, shooting for the teen rating. Blizzard usually comes through though, and I hope they do so again.
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Who here wanted to play Starcraft: Ghost?? Show of hands.. 1, 2..7..38940 ... Yeah, that's everyone..
Cartoon or not, I hope they come out with something this time around.
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what if Starcraft 2 fails to do anything new to for genre?
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I'll play StarCraft 2 when it comes out and I couldn't care less how it compares to StarCraft 1 graphics wise or gameplay wise. If it's a good game, I'll play it.
But in my book, the best RTS remains Age of Mythology ;)
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what if Starcraft 2 fails to do anything new to for genre?
Call me pessimistic if you wish, but for me this is not a question, it is a statement. Just look at some things drawn from this interview on the link:
http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/21/0550213 (http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/21/0550213)
I admire many of the great game designers who have pushed the boundaries in gaming (yourself, Will Wright and Peter Molyneux to name a few). However, I can't help but feel that many of today's genres are stale and a lot of new games are mostly repeating past formulas as we see many sequels or derivatives of previous games being released. This appears to be a trend that will continue. Where do you think the future of gaming is headed, and how hard is it to introduce radical new ideas into the industry?
The cost of making games has gone through the roof, so understandably, publishers want to invest in games that are sure to sell...and sequels for successful franchises are safe bets. It's very difficult to convince publishers to invest millions of dollars in a new game idea...it's too risky.
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How can you draw conclusions about StarCraft 2 and state them to others as facts while you have read nothing but interviews which don't even go about StarCraft 2 themselves?
So yes, I call you pessimistic. Play the game, then talk.
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It's just something I fear to be possibly true, knowing that, like FPSes, most RTSes follow the same old formula. I am very skeptical on the fact it may bring any innovation to the genre besides fancier, but cartoonish, graphics, what does not necessarily means it will be a bad game.
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The ability to step up onto walls (Collosus is it?) should add a large amount of depth to the strategy, and that's just one thing.
I'm looking forward to Starcraft 2, to be honest, and I'm usually a pessimist.
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Yeah, the use of heights is nice. Why did it take them 10 years to find out that units with legs could step over these height-blockades :P
It's nice that you have to do lots of things yourself too, instead of selecting units, clicking on the other side of the map and letting the AI do the rest. I also like the asymmetrical races.
I'm looking forward. The last two nice RTSes were AoE3 and Supreme Commander. In my eyes AoE3 just missed the things that were good about AoM such as the choosing of gods. Granted, you could choose "politicians" but that didn't reflect into your civilization as much as it did in AoM. Supreme Commander was just too big and complex for me, you can never be good at it if you don't spend 10 hours a day playing it.
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Supreme Commander was too awesome for life :P
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I didn't think Supreme Commander was that complicated... but then again, I never really played competitively, just games against friends.
I'm still looking forward to Starcraft 2, but blizzard has dissapointed me over the last few years. I was hoping to see some terran marines shredded by zerglings, not a bunch of lego men being chased by giant green dodgeballs.
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I never quite knew why the original Starcraft and its expansion Brood Wars was so popular, particularly when there were far superior (in at least many ways) to Starcraft. The graphics were okish, gameplay was based a lot on rushing, the way the civilizations were divided were so obvious that I couldn't hardly even fathom it. Zerg were great for the initial rush, mid to long term they were no good. Terran had a better chance of defending a zergling rush early on than the protoss did, and could be very competitive in moderate length games. Protoss were in for the long haul though. With the ability to cap population at 600 units when the others could only reach 200 made them essentially an unfairly broken race if they weren't defeated in the first 20 minutes of a game. In short, you have a rusher, a midranger, and a long ranger as far as civilizations go. Fairly boring to me.
I "HATE" people who judge a game by cartoony graphics..
Starcrafts cartoony graphics would have been fine if they hadn't been ruined by a lame 8 directional movement system when older games like Total Annihilation had a fully 3d engine. Sure the camera was fixed but it made the movement of units awesome to watch. Also, in Starcraft the thing that bugged me most was that the really really powerful units were super slow.
Truthfully I'm still a huge TA fan. Total Annihilation had a depth of gameplay that Starcraft couldn't match, a far far far wider variety of units, a 3d engine, full damage simulation, wreckage of old units became obstacles ( which was awesome when fighting over a narrow passage as it would become cluttered with junk and impassible by ground troops. Also, old wreckage could be reclaimed into raw materials to make new units ). The attention to detail in TA vs Starcraft to me isn't even a worthy comparison. Starcraft was a well marketed success but there were better games out there. There is a reason Starcraft missed out to TA for the best rts of all time title.
Hopefully SC2 will be better though. I've been hankering for a fun RTS game to play, and blizzard tends to make games that work well with W.I.N.E. so here's hoping!
In a side note, if you saw some of the early alpha and beta shots of starcraft, it was hideous. The final product was far far far better.
Here is a nice early alpha shot of SC. Note its horrible graphics and clone of the TA interface. In fact, at this stage it looks like a hideous copy of TA
(http://www.sclegacy.com/features/evolution/earlyalpha3.jpg)
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>.>
I always kinda thought TA sucked and blew...
to be fair SC and warcraft is RTS for the people who cant be bothred with 3 tonnes of boring stuff that needs to be learnt... and clearly you must be missing something on starcraft since what other game can claim to be a national sport in a country :P
korea ftw :P
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In a side note, if you saw some of the early alpha and beta shots of starcraft, it was hideous. The final product was far far far better.
that makes me feel a little better
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In a side note, if you saw some of the early alpha and beta shots of starcraft, it was hideous. The final product was far far far better.
that makes me feel a little better
Blizzard does a fantastic job of adding final polish to their games. You won't be disappointed with the polish and appearance of the final project I'd bet. Hopefully they add some depth to the gameplay. SC always had a good deal of potential but imo it never lived up to what it could have been. If SC2 is just like SC with better graphics then they are in trouble. But if they can do something cool and new and good with the genre then I'd buy it :)
>.>
I always kinda thought TA sucked and blew...
To be fair SC and Warcraft is RTSfor the people who cant be bothered with 3 tonnes of boring stuff that needs to be learned... and clearly you must be missing something on StarCraft since what other game can claim to be a national sport in a country :P
korea ftw :P
I like having the lots to learn. Part of the fun for me in games is learning everything about it, unit balance, time to do certain things, etc and the more complex to a certain extent then the more fun I have with it.
For me: SC vs TA
1.) The music. SC used midi or some other synthesized music. TA used a full on orchestral with real people playing the instruments. The TA CD can be unloaded and taken along and played in any CD player. I used to love crusing around to the awesome original orchestra pieces on that CD. In fact its probably got in my opinion the best sound track of any game I've ever played to date.
2.) Unit diversity. SC has somewhere around 85 or so units total if you have broodwars, nearly half of which are buildings. TA shipped with 150, and with the expansions was around 250. Some people might not like unit diversity, but I love it. Cavedog also had a promotion where they released a new downloadable unit every week for a long time. In conjunction with user submitted units, there are over 6 thousand units to choose from to customize your experience. These can be arranged easily into "packs" to distribute to friends so you can all play with the same sets of units.
3.) Map size. The largest maps in TA are 4 times as big as the biggest SC maps. This is great for larger multilayer games as well as a way to make one on one games longer and really adds some new dynamics to strategy.
4.) Weapon coolness. The weapons in TA are all animated and projectiles are simulated with a physics simulator. Units can miss targets completely, or hit directly. Damage is calculated based on vicinity from unit to explosion. In SC some things just shoot stuff without the barrels of guns or turrets turning to fire. Projectiles damage are calculated by a probability roll based on a few factors and is not simulated with real physics. In fact in SC projectiles always hit whether they appear to or not. Weapons in SC are really just animations. With 1 or two exceptions SC units can also not fire while moving. All TA units can unless they are stationary guns or mobile anti ICMB stations. SC also does not take into account wind speed, elevation, walls, or mountains. Those can be shot through with impunity as opposed to using the physics engine to calculate trajectory like TA does. Also say you launch a huge nuclear missile in TA. Since its a true projectile it is possible that a bomber, brawler, or some other aircraft flying at the right altitude could feasibly intersect it and collide with it. In SC the super weapons once launched cannot be stopped.
5.) Aircraft movement. In SC the flying things just sort of hover - they are more like hovering ground units, can stop in mid air, etc... The flight paths and air speed in TA is calculated with a physics engine too, and the units weave and bank, and when air speed drops they accelerate to avoid crashing.
6.) Building stuff. In SC each civ gets 1 construction unit. The variety in TA is awesome. Some are flying, some are more advanced and can build more advanced techs, etc. Also construction units in TA can do a fair amount of damage if need be if someone is not paying attention. They can swoop over and start reclaiming materials from someones buildings, eventually destroying them. You can also build airports, land construction buildings, docks, etc... :)
7.) Terrain diversity. SC doesn't have water. I think there is some lava or something in a few maps but you cannot build there. In TA you can build entire bases under water, launch submarines, etc...
8.) Selections. TA has unlimited selections. SC has a max selection of 12 units (I think... or is it 15? )
9.) Resources. In SC each map has a finite amount of resources. This can be good if its the type of game you want to play. In TA you can select unlimited resources or have a finite limit on a map. Tailor to your preferences :) Choice is always good.
10.) All games can suffer from net lag. In SC its dealt with by stopping game play completely and re syncing everything. TA slows down and speeds up time to keep things in line so the interface never becomes unresponsive. Genius :D
I think to each his own as far as game styles though. It all depends what you like. From a purely technological standpoint though TA is superior in almost every way. As for style, well... we all have to decide for ourselves :)
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Actually, I think, hoping fanboys won't flame me, that World In Conflict is more promising than Starcraft 2...
http://pc.ign.com/articles/706/706640p1.html (http://pc.ign.com/articles/706/706640p1.html)
Graphically speaking, I believe it simply "ownz" the cartoony graphics of Starcraft 2:
http://media.pc.ign.com/media/821/821566/img_3586272.html (http://media.pc.ign.com/media/821/821566/img_3586272.html)
Gameplay-wise, if it follows the same trend of Ground Control, I'm on it :)
Compare this video with the Starcraft 2 one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq0tXBs0PWE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq0tXBs0PWE)
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It has been like what, nine years?
Finally SC2 will come. The atmosphere of SC is something I'll never forget, and I know Blizzard won't "betray" us. \\o//
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hmm kind of hard to compare Raliegh as those screenshots and definately that trailer don't seem to show what you will see when actually playing. Movies are great specially if they show all the units bombing stuff and exploding, but doesn't really tell if the actual game will look anything like it.
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World in Conflict has shiny screenshots and shiny trailers. Most games have that and are still bad. It's a bit weird to say Starcraft 2 will blow based one some interviews with "industry insiders" and then state that another RTS will be better based solely on screenshots and trailers that are signs of a good marketing budget.
But that's just me.
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System Shock 2 never had any extensive marketing budget, but the fact it presented an alternative to the same gameplay formula of FPSes attracted me to play it. Also these impressions come from my experience with Ground Control 1, however the same people can develop both masterpieces and pieces of turd, hopefully World in Conflict won't be the latter.
It's a question of personal preference too that I don't hold many hopes for Starcraft 2, I never liked RTSes that relied on resource management because of the "click fast wins" and "high numbers wins regardless of tactics" most of them are about, I always took preference on the tactical side, on seeing and managing the action instead of building stuff, except for Turn Based Strategy games where the speed with which you click on buttons to build units doesn't matter for your success. And lastly, I hate cartoonish graphics for anything but comedy and humorous games.
Also, beyond the possibility of units jumping, I saw no significant demonstration of a new gameplay feature on that Starcraft 2 video.
However, discussing which one is better is useless now, lets wait for the release of both and for the subsequent reviews of them. The fact a game has a hype doesn't necessarily means it's bad, and perhaps, from that Starcraft 1 development screenshot, it can go into something better and more innovative as well. And as Total Annihilation was mentioned I point my opinion here: The only thing where Starcraft certainly is superior to TA is storyline. TA doesn't have any developed character on the plotline of its single player campaigns, although it is not devoid of history either, but Starcraft has much more depth of history and characters.
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Imagine the possibilities if they took this RTS and merged it with the canceled Ghost, ala http://www.s2games.com/savage/ (http://www.s2games.com/savage/) or WW2 Online.
Be able to make campaigns outside the context of the story line instead of just single game maps as an alternative to online gaming. where instead of following the scripted story line online players choose what course they take and where to execute those plans, then carry out those plans through an FPS arena.
Something along these lines will win out considerably to the drawn out and tired Dune-esk RTS. I hope Blizzard is thinking along the lines of OnLine, when the first StarCraft came out, most everyone was still using 56K modems, now everyone is using broadband. If they give us the same game play, prettier pictures will not give them the same praise they got with the first one. they have got to make this endeavor for the MMO community as much as for the single player, if not more so.