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[Nocebo]

The problem would still be having to have an internet connection to play LAN with your friends. I can see that being bad for some people. Not for me though but still.

 

[Gribbix]

If they announce a Battle.net2 subscription model to play online, I am so out, great game or not.

It's not subscription based (at least not for North America and Europe), but there will be extra paid services.

http://www.incgamers.com/Interviews/190/StarCraftIIDevelopersInterviewed

The new Battle.net will completely revolutionise the current version, but Blizzard is still looking to making this experience free for anyone buying StarCraft II or future games that use Battle.net. One idea which has been discussed in different iterations is microtransactions, meaning the service is free, but added value services like starting a custom tournament, league, or the like would cost a small amount of money.

...

Rob Pardo added: "Pretty much all of it [is free] as far as Europe and America is concerned, Asia is a little different how they do things, [but] there will be certain features that you pay for." He mentioned WoW as an example, where "value added services" like server transfers are paid for, but "you can get the full experience of Battle.net with all the features just from buying the box."

Also, Rob Pardo outright says the possibility of a console port is "Zero percent."

Regarding consoles, it looks dark for anyone wanting to try out the RTS on anything but PC. We asked how large chance it is to see StarCraft II on consoles and Pardo replied simply: "Zero percent."

Blizzard tries to approach each game, and see what platform it should be on. "In our opinion we just don't feel like we will deliver the type of RTS game that we've been creating [on consoles]."

"We have tried in the past, we actually tried the original StarCraft on Nintendo 64. It works, it's playable, it's just such a different playability gameplay experience than on PC and we really don't want to have it be that different."

 

[autobzooty]

My guess is that they'll replace LAN play with some sort of smart peer-to-peer detection coordinated through Battle.net that:

1) Secures things so that pirates can't play via LAN using one of those utilities
2) Players who are indeed on a LAN ends up with a direct connection that's just as fast and low-latency as if it were a Starcraft LAN game.


And :lol no, Battle.net is not going to be a for-pay service. Maybe some sort of premium features, but not for regular play like what is in Starcraft.

I hope you're right about the lan business, but you'd think that they would have mentioned it to soften the crushing blow to the face a little bit... :\

I find this news very surprising and I also find it perplexing that Blizzard would embargo bad news for a week.

 

[Tokubetsu]

If they announce a Battle.net2 subscription model to play online, I am so out, great game or not.

I'd be out of SC over it but I must have my diablo crack somehow.

 

[legend166]

If they announce a Battle.net2 subscription model to play online, I am so out, great game or not.

I'm gonna have to agree with this.


I don't even play LAN, but removing it is a bitch move.

 

[markot]

>.< why do they care so much about private/pirate/non blizz servers?

 

[LAUGHTREY]

The last time they tried making a RTS game was on the N64 so they don't want to try it again. I hope they're just using that example instead of saying they did try the 360/PS3 because they want to save face.

>.< why do they care so much about private/pirate/non blizz servers?

This game is like a national sport in S.Korea. Why wouldn't they want to keep it under lock and key?

 

[Scrow]

OP updated with this info:

* Heaps of screenshots and unit renders are up on starfeeder's flickr album, too many to post in the OP: http://www.flickr.com/photos/starfeeder/

Here are the tech-trees.

* New video courtesy of SC2Legacy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YT_0IRNbN14
* SC2Legacy's article of the press event: http://sclegacy.com/news/29-blizz/426-june-22-2009-press-event

Unfortunately, it was decided that 2.0 was still more like 1.9 and was not ready to shown. Thus the day became a general presser; a chance for direct feedback and questions.

* SC2Legacy's "My Day at Blizzard 2" article: http://sclegacy.com/feature/3-events/427-my-day-at-blizzard-2

* SC2Legacy's pre-beta review: http://sclegacy.com/feature/3-events/425-june-22-2009-starcraft-ii-review Some interesting bits of information there.

* Eurogamer has a hands on impressions article: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/starcraft-ii-hands-on

* Team Liquid also has an article up about their time at Blizzard's HQ: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=96479

* Gribbix's post has some information about the b.net2 subscription model: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=16473729&postcount=252 Microtransactions bitches!

* Apparently Blizzard will not be supporting LAN for SC2.

 

[Louminater]

"Browder also mentioned hotkeys, stating that while they had not yet been finalised they would be ready for beta. Also not implemented was the function keys being usable as hotkeys and again this was promised for beta."

that almost guarantees a much later beta than a lot of us expected... :/

 

[evlcookie]

Not supporting lan? Um hrm .. interesting choice.

 

[Raide]

Not supporting lan? Um hrm .. interesting choice.

I guess they want to send everyone via Battle.net in order to cut down people using pirate copies of the game. If it has to authorise the CD-Key and Battle.net account on login, they should be able to stop pirates playing it.

 

[Marty Chinn]

I guess they want to send everyone via Battle.net in order to cut down people using pirate copies of the game. If it has to authorise the CD-Key and Battle.net account on login, they should be able to stop pirates playing it.

I bet there will still be a way around this somehow. Heck, there are private WOW servers that people use to avoid paying.

 

[Morbid Angel]

Single player info from Shacknews

Shack: You haven't shown much of the singleplayer component, and that may be one reason for a lot of the skpeticism. Do you think the Terran campaign will catch some people by surprise?

Dustin Browder: I hope so. It's going to be pretty huge. It's really different than anything you've seen before in our titles. This is sort of a level of choice and options for the player--RTS is typically, you're on the rail man. And if you get a mission you can't beat, I guess you'd better take it back. Well, you can't take it back anymore. [laughs] I'm [thinking] of when you could take games back at [Electronics Boutique].

But you were just stuck right, and that's terrible. But now if you get stuck, you can go, "I'm going to come back to this one. I'm going to go myself something powerful and come back here and make this one suffer." At the same time, I think players--we learned a lot obviously in StarCraft, and I think this team learned even more in WarCraft III, in terms of the kinds of mechanics that you're going to get in this campaign. The kinds of things you're going to be doing in missions, I think is pretty cool stuff that maybe players aren't quite prepared for.

We've got a mission right now where every five minutes, lava rises and kills everything on the ground. Everything dies. You've got to get to the high ground or die. We've got a mission right now where infested Terrans are attacking at night, but they're hiding in the ground by day, so you need to just hold out all night long like you're in I Am Legend. Like, "I've got to live!" and then day, "Get 'em! Kill 'em while they sleep!" And you run out and you burn everything as fast as you can, and then when darkness starts coming you have to get back and hide out.

We've got missions where you're trying to defend a Terran colony that's getting infested one piece at a time, and you've got to try to put out all these fires while fighting off these infested units. We've got this mission where you are a lone ghost trying to influence the course of an entire battle. So each of these missions is like a little minigame.

Shack: Yeah, that's what they sound like.

Dustin Browder: It's like a 15-45 minute minigame. Depending on how fun the mission is it'll be longer or shorter. But each one is its own little game for you to play.

Shack: At this point, are they mostly unique missions, or are there archetypes?

Dustin Browder: As much as we can, as much as we can. I'm sure there's repeated content, but it's not by choice. As much as we can we try to make them different. So if we have a hold-out, we try to make the hold- outs different as much as possible. There's some mechanic about it that's fundamentally different.

 

[Fallout-NL]

That sounds pretty awesome.

 

[Johann]

Wow at the Zerg tech-tree. I want to see how a ZvZ plays out.

No lan means B.net 2.0 is going to groundbreaking or people with a whimsical ISP are in for trouble.

 

[Aaron]

I guess they want to send everyone via Battle.net in order to cut down people using pirate copies of the game. If it has to authorise the CD-Key and Battle.net account on login, they should be able to stop pirates playing it.

Great joke, man. When have pirates ever been stopped by this sort of thing? If it's on the PC, it's going to get cracked. The best Blizzard can do is keep the game from being cracked for a while and work on people's impatience.

 

[spoon!]

Wow. Lurkers are so far down the tech tree now. What made them do that

 

[Johann]

Wow. Lurkers are so far down the tech tree now. What made them do that

I think the Lurker was moved to hive tech in order to put emphasis on the Infestor, which can move while burrowed.

 

[Minsc]

But you were just stuck right, and that's terrible. But now if you get stuck, you can go, "I'm going to come back to this one. I'm going to go myself something powerful and come back here and make this one suffer." At the same time, I think players--we learned a lot obviously in StarCraft, and I think this team learned even more in WarCraft III, in terms of the kinds of mechanics that you're going to get in this campaign. The kinds of things you're going to be doing in missions, I think is pretty cool stuff that maybe players aren't quite prepared for.

We've got a mission right now where every five minutes, lava rises and kills everything on the ground. Everything dies. You've got to get to the high ground or die. We've got a mission right now where infested Terrans are attacking at night, but they're hiding in the ground by day, so you need to just hold out all night long like you're in I Am Legend. Like, "I've got to live!" and then day, "Get 'em! Kill 'em while they sleep!" And you run out and you burn everything as fast as you can, and then when darkness starts coming you have to get back and hide out.

We've got missions where you're trying to defend a Terran colony that's getting infested one piece at a time, and you've got to try to put out all these fires while fighting off these infested units. We've got this mission where you are a lone ghost trying to influence the course of an entire battle. So each of these missions is like a little minigame.

Awesome. The campaign is going to be so sweet.

 

[jett]

Wow no LAN is kind of...crazy. Playing LAN games with my friends was the best part of the Starcraft experience. I guess someone will hack SC2 to work with LAN, anyway.

 

[Won]

So.....WHERE IS MY BETA!?

No LAN sounds like it could be a serious pain in the ass for LAN parties and such. B.net 2.0 needs to be crazy awesome to justify that.

Also some ugly new (and old) units in that video. Blizz really needs to hire some new talent there. :/

 

[Wollan]

I'm looking forward to (among everything else) the point & click adventure aspect in between missions.

 

[Wollan]

From a Norwegian article today:

- StarCraft 2 started production in 2003 but was delayed for a year as Blizzard moved most of it's designers over to World of WarCraft to finish that game

- They have had a playable build since late 2005.

- StarCraft 2 is so far the one of the few Blizzard titles (if not the only one) that hasn't changed in any significant way during production, the initial design was well developed (they referred to WC3 and Wow as projects which had a lot of change half-way through).

 

[infinityBCRT]

From a Norwegian article today:

- StarCraft 2 started production in 2003 but was delayed for a year as Blizzard moved most of it's designers over to World of WarCraft to finish that game

- They have had a playable build since late 2005.

- StarCraft 2 is so far the one of the few Blizzard titles (if not the only one) that hasn't changed in any significant way during production, the initial design was well developed (they referred to WC3 and Wow as projects which had a lot of change half-way through).

Seeing as SC2 looks to be an enhanced version of the original StarCraft (and the gameplay engine looks similar to WC3) rather than a complete overhaul like their previous games I'd expect that, at least from the gameplay components. But they had to have changed the story elements since it originally only was one SKU but now its three.

 

[Nocebo]

Seeing as SC2 looks to be an enhanced version of the original StarCraft (and the gameplay engine looks similar to WC3) rather than a complete overhaul like their previous games I'd expect that, at least from the gameplay components. But they had to have changed the story elements since it originally only was one SKU but now its three.

What are the games you are talking about where they did a complete overhaul instead of an "enhanced version" of the previous game?

 

[FoxSpirit]

What are the games you are talking about where they did a complete overhaul instead of an "enhanced version" of the previous game?

Warcraft 3. You may not know that but the initial draft for Warcraft 3 was a very, very different game. I still thought it looked awesome but Blizzard said in the end it didn't turn into something fun and scrapped a lot of it, reworking it into the Warcraft 3 we see today.

 

[Nocebo]

Warcraft 3. You may not know that but the initial draft for Warcraft 3 was a very, very different game. I still thought it looked awesome but Blizzard said in the end it didn't turn into something fun and scrapped a lot of it, reworking it into the Warcraft 3 we see today.

That's one game and he said games. Besides he was talking about overhaul between entries in the series. I guess WC3 still fits compared to WC2, but I doubt there are many others.

 

[epmode]

Man, the singleplayer stuff sounds hot.

They can choose the order of the missions, they can choose which units they want to upgrade. So if you love yourself some medics, hey I got a couple upgrades for you they would make them so powerful we'd never put them in multiplayer. We've got a couple upgrades in there--oh, did you want an eight-man bunker with three armor? Go you. Did you want a Hercules dropship that can carry three Thors into battle, and looks like it can? There's all kinds of crazy stuff that you only get through the solo campaign. I think it'll really rock 'em, but we'll see.

I'm actually excited about the three game structure now (as opposed to one game with two expansions). But I guess we'll know how successful the approach is when we see just how different the second game's campaign is from the first.

 

[Tenks]

I've also heard Diablo2 was for the most part scrapped and rewritten a few times. I thought someone told me the release version was really done in about 2 years.

 

[Scrow]

We've got this mission where you are a lone ghost trying to influence the course of an entire battle.

what the shit? this sounds AWESOME!

 

[Tenks]

what the shit? this sounds AWESOME!

SC:Ghost reborn!

 

[Scrow]

did anyone notice in that new video, when the mothership warps to the enemy base and then a whole bunch of other units start attacking the base that the immortals didn't use their walk animation? they just slid across the ground, rather than their legs actually moving.

 

[The Lamonster]

omg I don't even care about LAN anymore, single player sounds like it's going to be amazing.

 

[Zzoram]

Warcraft 3. You may not know that but the initial draft for Warcraft 3 was a very, very different game. I still thought it looked awesome but Blizzard said in the end it didn't turn into something fun and scrapped a lot of it, reworking it into the Warcraft 3 we see today.

The original Warcraft 3 was focused on a hero and his small party of units, with no base building at all. Bases would all be neutral and you would only interact with them to complete missions, purchase new equipment, and recruit new mercenaries. They decided that the lack of base building, small army size, and lack of resourcing sucked (thank god, I hate the trend of reducing the role of bases and resource gathering, economic decisions and huge armies are my favourite part of strategy games) and put it back in, demoting neutral buildings to just mercenary hiring structures and shops.

The original concept for StarCraft looked like Warcraft 2.

It used the exact same interface, with the same engine and graphical fidelity. It took place in space, with orbital platforms and units that could fly through space. Originally, the workers could fly across space, which is why they all have movement animations that involve hovering. Eventually they decided to base the game mainly on the ground (except the space platform tileset, which was basically still ground but with gaps of space instead of water). This allowed them to introduce the burrowing mechanic for the Zerg, among other things.

Diablo 3 started as a Heaven vs Hell game, after the Destruction of the World Stone merged them into Sanctuary. It had environments set in each of those locales. Eventually they decided to scrap that, probably because they didn't like the way the game looked, and put the story and focus back on Sanctuary, with elements of Heaven and Hell leaking into the world.

 

[autobzooty]

So...about that video that popped up...

It looks like it was a presentation with commentary. Do we know where the off-screen/commentary version is?

 

[Zzoram]

I am extremely concerned with the Zerg. They have the most useless, late tier anti-air in the game, and it shows. Blizzard said from that event last week that internal testing shows Zerg is definitely weaker than the other two races, with Terran seemingly the strongest.

One guy reported that you can basically kill a Zerg with 1-2 Dark Templar now, backed up with a few Phoenix, since Overlords don't start with detection anymore, making the equivalent of Sair/DT invincible.

 

[lybertyboy]

So...about that video that popped up...

It looks like it was a presentation with commentary. Do we know where the off-screen/commentary version is?

No it was just the B-Roll that was sent to all outlets.

 

[esbern]

I am extremely concerned with the Zerg. They have the most useless, late tier anti-air in the game, and it shows. Blizzard said from that event last week that internal testing shows Zerg is definitely weaker than the other two races, with Terran seemingly the strongest.

One guy reported that you can basically kill a Zerg with 1-2 Dark Templar now, backed up with a few Phoenix, since Overlords don't start with detection anymore, making the equivalent of Sair/DT invincible.

wow...i wish you worked for blizzard because clearly they don't know this

 

[Zzoram]

wow...i wish you worked for blizzard because clearly they don't know this

I'm just saying, if they're ready to beta test, and there is 1 race clearly under powered, all the beta will show is that Zerg is still underpowered. They should be at a somewhat even level for beta, so that the testers can find new imbalances that are less obvious.

 

[autobzooty]

I am extremely concerned with the Zerg. They have the most useless, late tier anti-air in the game, and it shows. Blizzard said from that event last week that internal testing shows Zerg is definitely weaker than the other two races, with Terran seemingly the strongest.

One guy reported that you can basically kill a Zerg with 1-2 Dark Templar now, backed up with a few Phoenix, since Overlords don't start with detection anymore, making the equivalent of Sair/DT invincible.

My novice will probably show a bit here, but I think the hydralisk (whatever is the weird one that spits green goo at people) receives an upgrade that makes him do +4 or +5 extra damage per hit. Something like that.

I saw it in a battle report, and the terran's air game was sent running.

Also, can't the Queen help with anti-air?

 

[Zzoram]

My novice will probably show a bit here, but I think the hydralisk (whatever is the weird one that spits green goo at people) receives an upgrade that makes him do +4 or +5 extra damage per hit. Something like that.

I saw it in a battle report, and the terran's air game was sent running.

Also, can't the Queen help with anti-air?

The Queen is useless for defense, because you have to keep using her to produce more Larvae, a much more useful function.

 

[surazal]

The Queen is useless for defense, because you have to keep using her to produce more Larvae, a much more useful function.

The problem I mentioned has more to do with Protoss Dark Templar killing a Zerg, and since Overlords have to be upgraded to detect, Anti-air units like the Phoenix killing them makes a big different. With Broodwar, every Overlord could detect, so as long as you kept a few at every base, you were safe against DTs. In Starcraft 2, you have to pay extra to upgrade the Overlords to detect, meaning that to get the same level of protection, you need to spend a lot more money. So even a single DT and Phoenix spotted will force the Zerg to overspend on upgrading Overlords, while the Protoss is free to switch to some other tech without committing too much money. If the Zerg doesn't commit, then the 2 DTs and pair of Phoenix will kill him.

It probably just means that zerg will have to invest in a spore crawler, which i assume is still a detector. The crawlers seem to be able to move in the creep. The queen can be used to spawn larva so there might be less of a concern for using drones to create defense buildings compared to SC1. Since detection is a bit harder to come by, it might be the reason why they moved the lurker to requiring a hive.

 

[Zzoram]

It probably just means that zerg will have to invest in a spore crawler, which i assume is still a detector. The crawlers seem to be able to move in the creep. The queen can be used to spawn larva so there might be less of a concern for using drones to create defense buildings compared to SC1. Since detection is a bit harder to come by, it might be the reason why they moved the lurker to requiring a hive.

I guess, but the result is that Zerg have no ability to contain and gain map control. Lurkers being out before mobile detectors was a norm in Broodwar, and it wasn't overpowered. Now that Ultralisks have splash damage, and are the same tier as Lurkers, it seems like there is less of a reason to get Lurkers.

 

[autobzooty]

Surely an upgraded overlord isn't the ONLY detector for zergs? They used to have those static defense buildings which were detector's but now they have the spin crawler instead. perhaps that will be a detector?

having to build your own detection units isn't putting the zerg at a disadvantage, it's leveling the playing field. protoss have it easiest, imo, because their photon cannons are detectors and can attack both air and ground, unlike the terran missile turret.

 

[Scrow]

Surely an upgraded overlord isn't the ONLY detector for zergs? They used to have those static defense buildings which were detector's but now they have the spin crawler instead. perhaps that will be a detector?

there's a spine crawler and a spore crawler. in SC1 it was the sunken colony and spore colony. only the spore colony was a detector.

 

[Zzoram]

Surely an upgraded overlord isn't the ONLY detector for zergs? They used to have those static defense buildings which were detector's but now they have the spin crawler instead. perhaps that will be a detector?

having to build your own detection units isn't putting the zerg at a disadvantage, it's leveling the playing field. protoss have it easiest, imo, because their photon cannons are detectors and can attack both air and ground, unlike the terran missile turret.

They have Spore crawlers.

Observers have always gave Protoss the most useful detector, since it's both mobile and invisible, so very long lived.

I am no longer worried about PvZ imbalance, because apparently a Spawning Pool -> Queen opening can result in mass Zerglings+Roaches that overwhelm any Protoss build order well before they get Templar tech. It's just that most people weren't using the Queens properly to constantly inject Larvae. A 150 Mineral Queen is as good as having a 2nd Hatchery for Larvae production, and as good as having Zerglings for defense. Zerg can now safely go Spawning Pool first, and be ahead in tech, without sacrificing economy.

 

[speedpop]

Death to Zerg.

 

[Guled]

Its been forever since I played the SC1 campaign, but didn't the zerg ultimately win?

 

[dLMN8R]

Looks like NO LAN PLAY WTF has become to latest NRTOTW (Nerd Rage Topic of the Week).

Baseless conjecture? Check!
Threats of boycotts? Check!
Ignoring of common sense? Check!

Not so much here, but Blue's News, Digg, Rock Paper Shotgun, and other places are UP IN ARMS and OH SO FURIOUS :lol

Think about it - do you honestly think that Blizzard won't enable some way of playing local multiplayer without an internet connection? Even though that was the entire function that made Starcraft so huge in the first place?

 

[autobzooty]

I just checked out the interview they had up at IGN, and apparently Blizzard is very conscious of the people who enjoy the game but suck at it. They said that more will be revealed about how they're gonna be friendlier to the more casual player as they talk more about the new Battle.net, but they did say that they're working to make more modes where many players will work cooperatively against the AI so that it will be, quote, "...less about winning and more about learning."

This is very very good news to a player like me.

Think about it - do you honestly think that Blizzard won't enable some way of playing local multiplayer without an internet connection? Even though that was the entire function that made Starcraft so huge in the first place?

When they say they have "no plans to support lan," what the hell are we SUPPOSED to be thinking?