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Starcraft 2 split

A

angelneo

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jun 13, 2004
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I'm not sure if gamers on Macrumors are aware, but at the recent Blizzcon, they had announced that SC2 will be splitting into 3 parts. Each one is 'targeted' to be released one year after another, and each part will contain the campaign for one faction only. I believe Terrans would come first.

http://pc.ign.com/articles/918/918895p1.html

Apparently, this and the BNet charging are making waves on the community. Personally, I feel this is a PR disaster, they could have announced it in a better fashion than to just drop the bombshell, and let the fans speculate.
 
PR disaster is right...that would be LAAAAME!
It would basically be like buying expansion packs for each race. Not only would the cost be way higher, but we would have to wait an additional 3 years to play the full game!

Which brings me to another point, if we were to play online, would it be cross-expansion compatible? Because with the current brood war, when I was playing I only used the broodwar disc, and the original starcraft disc just sat there forever, and thats how I liked it..
 
I believe all the 3 factions will be available on any installment, but I can't confirm that.

It is undeniable that they will be releasing expansion packs for SC2. From another perspective, you can sort of argue that they are just readjusting the expansion content if the content for each installment are as plentiful as now. However, coming out to say "SC2 will be split into 3 different titles" is just asking for the community to go into hyperventilate mode.
 
Hey there, I got some input on this. I've watched the interview with Chris Sigaty and read a little bit about the splitting of the game.

I can see it both ways, and it'll be perfectly fine, on one condition:

They price the games like expansions.

Here's the compromise I see as being necessary. Instead of making someone buy a standalone game for each race (which would feel like paying for the game three times over), make all three priced as full games, and if the customer owns a previous copy with a valid CD-Key, he can buy the game at an expansion price.

This would make it fair for people who basically already paid for the privilege of multiplayer while not making people feel ripped off after already purchasing one of the games.

Either that or they make the first release with the Terrans still really really big, including mini campaigns of the other races too, and then have the other two just be priced as expansions. I would be angry if they charged $50 for all three with no chance to get one at a reasonable price, even if it is over a 3 year period. It's still just the one game...
 
I have no problem with whatever distribution method they would like to go with, honestly. As long as it doesn't involve some double dare or fear factor sort of obstacle course, I'll put my money their way.
 
babyjenniferLB said:
So i will have to wait a year or 2 after launch before i can play the race i want to play.
Click to expand...

The article says that's only the case for the campaign mode. For multiplayer you will have all your races available immediately from whatever game you buy.
 
God this thread is full of misinformation. The initial release of the game will contain a fully functional multiplayer/singleplayer-vs.-CPU experience, as well as the Terran Singleplayer campaign.

The campaigns are going to be LONG, far longer than the original. The other campaigns will be released as expansions, down the road. Each campaign will be an individual story, with a full ending. No cliff-hangers.

Expansions may also add new units to multiplayer, just as Brood War did.

Here's some tasty-sauce.

Just to clarify - they aren't skimping out. You aren't being short-changed. They are enriching the singleplayer story campaign. Don't like the story? Don't buy the expansion. Come on guys, it's been exactly the same for all Blizzard expansions, just that this time, there'll be two, rather than one.
 
I think that's kind of messed up...I play the campaign as a way to get familiar with the units, so now to play protoss I'm just gonna jump into BNET and be done with it and never buy the expansion. I'm sure the koreans will do this as well, they don't care about the story line.

But this is kind of funny, if the expansion come years after the initial game, it makes sense to have nasty graphic updates with every volume, no? So will cross-expansion multiplayer-playing be effected? Be funny if they just lock you out of BNET and force you to buy the expansion to "update" your game. Not to mention more units...2-3 years is a long time without adding new units...which then would alter the previous releases' story line

I dunno.

Don't do it...
 
CJM said:
The campaigns are going to be LONG, far longer than the original. The other campaigns will be released as expansions, down the road. Each campaign will be an individual story, with a full ending. No cliff-hangers.
Click to expand...

But will the be fun? In the original you got to switch to a new race/specie when things started to get a little boring. Now you've lost that option.
 
zsft said:
But this is kind of funny, if the expansion come years after the initial game, it makes sense to have nasty graphic updates with every volume, no? So will cross-expansion multiplayer-playing be effected? Be funny if they just lock you out of BNET and force you to buy the expansion to "update" your game. Not to mention more units...2-3 years is a long time without adding new units...which then would alter the previous releases' story line

I dunno.

Don't do it...
Click to expand...

Since when do EXPANSION PACKS ever do anything to the underlying source code and/or graphics engine?

BLIZZARD IS NOT EA, dont confuse the practices of one with the other.
 
CJM said:
God this thread is full of misinformation. The initial release of the game will contain a fully functional multiplayer/singleplayer-vs.-CPU experience, as well as the Terran Singleplayer campaign.

The campaigns are going to be LONG, far longer than the original. The other campaigns will be released as expansions, down the road. Each campaign will be an individual story, with a full ending. No cliff-hangers.

Expansions may also add new units to multiplayer, just as Brood War did.

Here's some tasty-sauce.

Just to clarify - they aren't skimping out. You aren't being short-changed. They are enriching the singleplayer story campaign. Don't like the story? Don't buy the expansion. Come on guys, it's been exactly the same for all Blizzard expansions, just that this time, there'll be two, rather than one.
Click to expand...
I'm waiting to see the price of each installment. I still don't think it's fair to charge full price for each installment. If those additional campaigns are priced like the expansion then it would be ok. If they start selling them as a new title, then it would feel like they are grabbing for money.
 
This would be horribly stupid. And don't even compare it to an expansion. It's not like it was, except we get two expansions now. For the WC and SC games, each game and expansion had multiple races. Yes, the single player for each race may be longer now, but it's one race! Playing more than one race in single player was part of the fun of the game (and helped you learn them). This would take that away. The single player for each race may be longer this way, but it's a seriously handicapped game.
 
Sdashiki said:
Since when do EXPANSION PACKS ever do anything to the underlying source code and/or graphics engine?

BLIZZARD IS NOT EA, dont confuse the practices of one with the other.
Click to expand...

no sh*t son, that's why it's stupid. buying anything using 3 year old technology is not my thing. but whatever makes you happy you know. it's like voting for mccain, except it'll cost money.
 
I wasn't that upset to begin with. Its not that surprising knowing Blizzard's addiction with money. But knowing that I'll have to wait THREE YEARS to play the Protos campaign really sucks. Thats 2011.

Can the game holds its own for three years being broken like this?
 
Wow, so much hostility.

If you want to play all the races at once then it's simple: wait until 2011 to buy the game+expansions. You'd be waiting that long anyway if Blizzard didn't release it until it was completely done. No harm, no foul.

Personally I think this is great, because I play for the story. Every Warcraft and Starcraft have great story potential, but it's always crammed in to such a short space. Now they're going to be able to have a proper story.

I think it's going to be great. :)
 
angelneo said:
I'm waiting to see the price of each installment. I still don't think it's fair to charge full price for each installment. If those additional campaigns are priced like the expansion then it would be ok. If they start selling them as a new title, then it would feel like they are grabbing for money.
Click to expand...
After some thought, I don't think they will price each installment with a expansion tag or lower than a usual game title.

If what they say is true that all 3 installment each have all the 3 factions available for online play, then a player theoretically could just buy the protoss campaign and be able to play online, which means it has to be priced at the same price tag as the original terran campaign.

However, they could go for a core pack, and a campaign pack for each faction... hmm. I think there's too many direction they could take with this announcement but I think no matter how you look at it, it is going to cost a lot more than a usual rts if you want the full SC2 experience.
 
evilgEEk said:
Wow, so much hostility.

If you want to play all the races at once then it's simple: wait until 2011 to buy the game+expansions. You'd be waiting that long anyway if Blizzard didn't release it until it was completely done. No harm, no foul.

Personally I think this is great, because I play for the story. Every Warcraft and Starcraft have great story potential, but it's always crammed in to such a short space. Now they're going to be able to have a proper story.

I think it's going to be great. :)
Click to expand...

Exactly. The game will also give you choice in the missions you do, so if you don't enjoy a particular arc, you can go do something else.

On a side-note, there will be a short Protoss campaign meshed into the Terran game. (no link.. it was either in an interview with Dustin Browder (lead game designer) or in the actual SC2 panel.)
 
The expansions shouldn't be priced equally. The bulk of a game is its engine, models, textures, sounds, etc. It sounds like the 2 expansions will basically be adding ~30 missions each, a few new characters, and some cinematics, but the game itself is basically the exact same thing. Creating a bunch of maps is easy. The complexity of user generated maps in the first StarCraft blew away the campaign missions. I'm sure that will be the case for this one no matter how involved the missions are.

Personally, I would have preferred 10 missions for each race in one game with expansions for additional stories. I prefer the multiplayer anyway.

I bet by the time Blizzard gets the other 2 games out, users will have already created campaigns for the other two races and beat them to the punch which would make them look pretty bad.
 
Why would they even announce that now when it's too early to be able to give information on prices or game content? How could they not see these questions/concerns coming? They should've waited until they could say exactly what was going to be in each game and how much each would cost. Don't they know that people go into mass panic whenever you announce anything thats slightly out of the ordinary?

It makes me sick! Actually, I could care less.
 
ksb43 said:
It makes me sick! Actually, I could care less.
Click to expand...

couldn't care less.

....

People are upset about the pricing, but it's Blizzard's prerogative to make the game that much more in depth. They're basically making three complete games, so why shouldn't they charge for the additional games?
 
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