Game News Heart of the Swarm is out now

[MetalCraze]

No. Because thankfully RTS genre is dead.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Who ever had the talent to do a quite funny and well done Starship Troopers style propaganda parody like this one is long gone from Blizzard or has been demoted to janitor or toilet cleaner. Nowadays it's all Bioware style cheesy romance and Dragonball kamehameha fights and ANCIENT PROPHECY space fantasy...all fucking serious business of course.

Starcraft's setting and plot were always on the level of a cheap C-movie. Where the original and Broodwar shined was atmosphere and style. Art, music, sound effects, it all blended perfectly together to create a rather dark sci-fi atmosphere that was yet surprisingly low-key and didn't it take itself to seriously. Even the music in the main menu was awesome, or the screen where you could choose your campaigns by clicking on cool animated models of Terran, Protoss and a Hydralisk. Or the mission briefing screens with its cool background music and nice art. I always loved the Terran briefing screen with the twisted computer terminal and the robotic adjutant. Not to forget how awesome for example the Protoss where actually designed in the rendered game art.
I mean compare this:

to this abomination:

It's really too many little details too mention them all, but Starcraft oozed with style and atmosphere. That's why the singleplayer aspect was enjoyable despite the rather boring mission design. Starcraft 2 looks like they had taken a 12 year old Transformers fan and a Biodrone and told them "alright guys, now make a list of everything you find really, really cool and we will put ALL of it into the game".

 

[Kane]

Who ever had the talent to do a quite funny and well done Starship Troopers style propaganda parody like this one is long gone from Blizzard or has been demoted to janitor or toilet cleaner.

except it's the same guy that has always been responsible: chris metzen
the only important change in personell is justin bowder as lead designer instead of james phinney (who now works at arena.net)

even the cinematics lead is still Matthew Samia.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Well it doesn't matter, wouldn't be the first person in the creative industry to turn into total shit during his later career.

 

[Kane]

Well it doesn't matter, wouldn't be the first person in the creative industry to turn into total shit during his later career.

i guess it's with all those books, comic and whatever background material they kinda forced themselves into this postion.

 

[spectre]

It's really too many little details too mention them all, but Starcraft oozed with style and atmosphere.

We've already given this horse a good whacking when Diablo 3 got out. Unfortunately for blizzard, WoW happeneed, and it metastasized its fugly style into the rest of the company. Art style, writing, gameplay mechanics, all gone.

That said, I was never a Starcraft fan, never finished S2, so the only way I care about HotS is to see the decline in action.

 

[Shadenuat]

StarCraft, while maybe not terrificly intellectual, was a SCI-FI product of it's age. It gathered it's tropes from Predator, Aliens, Starship Troopers and Warhammer of old editions (until 40K gone into ura-spacemarine retardation completely, it actually was p. grim, with humanity being less technologicaly adept and struggling for survival). StarCraft 2, of the other hand, gathered from Blizzard's own success within fantasy genre. Which means pathos to an extreme, millions of dorra spent on silicon movies, "new and shiny" art and characters with complexity of badly drawn superheroes. Just compare plots of StarCraft and WarCraft 3, the latter is certanly a much more cliche "gather allies and kill big bad" thing, with occasional plot twists borrowed from bad anime (like that demonguy). Not surprisinglly, Wings of Liberty turned out to be a soap opera.
I don't think Blizzard will do StarCraft or Diablo ever again. Blizzard now's doing Blizzard The Game 3, 4, 5 and so on. With shiny GEMS in armor, large pauldrons, epic plot and... whatever they think they are now.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

None of them are in their twenties any more, they're all on the corporate payroll.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Well put, well put.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Will probably end up pirating this, only way i can stomach playing anything from Blizzard these days.

 

[Scruffy]

so i plan on buying it this weekend, but can anyone tell me if it's good?

 

[Irenaeus]

You don't have time to read the thread?

Spoiler

it's shit

 

[DraQ]

You know what guys?
I just no longer care.

 

[Scruffy]

You don't have time to read the thread?

Spoiler

it's shit

i've read it
people complain of cinematics and love stories
i don't give a fuck
is it fun to play online? who the hell plays starcraft single player missions anyway?

 

[Ulminati]

You don't have time to read the thread?

Spoiler

it's shit

i've read it
people complain of cinematics and love stories
i don't give a fuck
is it fun to play online? who the hell plays starcraft single player missions anyway?

Do you play terran? If so, enjoy pubstomping. Else, no.

Oh,and you have to level up in multiplayer now, CoD style.

 

[Scruffy]

i see
heh, will give it a try anyway, it's cheap to buy here where i live.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

In terms of gameplay the campaign is fantastic like WoL was, there's some really fucking dumb story segments though.

A bit gratuitous at times with the sprinkling of none traditional RTS mission design, feels a bit like showing off.

If CoH II turns out to be half as polished i'll be a happy bunny.

 

[Irenaeus]

In terms of gameplay the campaign is fantastic like WoL was.

 

[RK47]

 

[fizzelopeguss]

In terms of gameplay the campaign is fantastic like WoL was.

Take your bullshit edginess out of my vicinity please. Cheers, newfag.

 

[Creamy Muffin]

^

Prepare, oh ye' of little faith, for a Lost Vikings reboot.

Lost Vikings: popamole edition, now featuring an shit epic story with more than 5h of hq blizz cinematics. Also featuring always online DRM multiplayer for a more social experience.

+ romanceable Tomator npc DLC! , but only if you preorder right after the reveal

 

[kris]

In terms of gameplay the campaign is fantastic like WoL was, there's some really fucking dumb story segments though.

Like J!m mentioned in that other thread almost all are timed. Most are based around the premise to send your army to position A/B/C before it is to late.

There is therefore pretty much no strategy involved, more than possibly have a extra stack for defense.

 

[groke]

There's no hope for them now, Codex. They're sufferin'. You know we've got to do it...

 

[pan]

I think that the only WoL missions that weren't timed were the ones with heroes in them and the one near the end where you have to blow up the mutalisk asteroid

 

[Jaedar]

Starcraft:Ghost maybe?

It'll probably not be good whatever it is

 

[fizzelopeguss]

That's because turtling is bullshit, without a timer all anyone would do is build a ring of turrets to protect the base and then build a 200 supply army with full research. fun for a few levels, but a 20 odd mission campaign?

 

[Cowboy Moment]

In terms of gameplay the campaign is fantastic like WoL was

Hey, that's not...

That's because turtling is bullshit, without a timer all anyone would do is build a ring of turrets to protect the base and then build a 200 supply army with full research. fun for a few levels, but a 20 odd mission campaign?

Oh.

 

[pan]

That's because turtling is bullshit, without a timer all anyone would do is build a ring of turrets to protect the base and then build a 200 supply army with full research. fun for a few levels, but a 20 odd mission campaign?

What happens when you turtle against a competent opponent? They expand and overpower you. It's the economic side to these RTSs that leads to dynamic game play. The need to control a larger economy than your opponent forces you to take action and not sit inside of your base. Without the economic paradigm the game invariably leads to turtling, as there is nothing to compel either player to fight the other before they possess an army powerful enough to win.

Ideally, the AI would be able to play the economy game too. Unfortunately, it cannot and Blizzard settled for a poor substitute. Timers, after all, only disguise the issue, they don't actually fix it. The AI in SC2 is just as useless as the AI in BW, it's just that in SC2 you're on the clock to beat the AI before the countdown reaches zero, so you can only turtle for a finite amount of time. Up until the point of time in which the timer reaches zero you can turtle to your hearts content. It's of no consequence whether you have 15 minutes left before the purifier blows up your base or 5 minutes, so there is no reason to confront the purifier in the most timely fashion; it is, in fact, prudent to turtle for the longest time possible. Thus, all of those timed missions in SC2 merely serve to delay the amount of time in which the player can turtle. The challenge of SC2's single player is merely to produce the strongest army possible within a limited time frame. It's banal and totally one-dimensional. There is no point in it, no more challenge than it takes to identify which units you need to produce and on top of this already lack of merit it is also annoying as you cannot play it at your leisure as you can other single player strategy games. It is the rattle of consoletards, a simplistic device for entertaining retards. My God save you if you enjoy it.

 

[commie]

No. Because thankfully RTS genre is dead.

Fuck you man...Men of War(and FoW and particularly SHOWW2) is LIFE!

Gotta update though. The story don't get in the way of the missions later. But the missions is again gimmicky about every new unit you get.

That's often been a problem with RTS campaigns though. I remember in Red Alert 2, there were what 13-14 missions per faction and you only got every unit by the second last mission! I know that a campaign should be a bit different than a skirmish or conquer the planet style game as in the later DOW games as that whole thing gets a bit monotonous itself, but drip feeding you units in a totally linear puzzle game is not any alternative either. Best was how Earth 2150 did it with a mix of those limited unit, time limit missions and the free for all's with an overreaching strategy.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

What happens when you turtle against a competent opponent? They expand and overpower you. It's the economic side to these RTSs that leads to dynamic game play. The need to control a larger economy than your opponent forces you to take action and not sit inside of your base. Without the economic paradigm the game invariably leads to turtling, as there is nothing to compel either player to fight the other before they possess an army powerful enough to win.

The issue here is that it exacerbates the "i'm only playing skirmish mode with triggers". A thorn in the heel of countless RTS campaigns. Do you remember any of the macro missions in SC? i do recall the level where you hold off the zerg waves, the one where you're trudging about in that base with limited marines, and the one where you're racing to prevent dukes battlecruiser from being overrun.

Ideally, the AI would be able to play the economy game too.

agreed, but the AI would have all the advantage if it starts out with a ready made base. A "smart" AI would immediately start by dragging all it's units into a blob and converge them on your starting location. So we're essentially back to our timer/turtle issue

Unfortunately, it cannot and Blizzard settled for a poor substitute. Timers, after all, only disguise the issue, they don't actually fix it. The AI in SC2 is just as useless as the AI in BW, it's just that in SC2 you're on the clock to beat the AI before the countdown reaches zero, so you can only turtle for a finite amount of time. Up until the point of time in which the timer reaches zero you can turtle to your hearts content.

That's where the bonus objectives come in, you have to move out if you want the upgrades for Units/kerrigan. There's also a sizeable number of missions where you're encouraged to wipe out secondary enemy bases. It's not perfect but it keeps you moving while you build your main base/force up.

it is also annoying as you cannot play it at your leisure as you can other single player strategy games.

There's no doubt in my mind that this is the main issue people have with the new campaigns, no matter how much they dress it up. And it's a fair complaint.