Future of StatCraft after LoTV (some spoilers)

[Signette]

I'm well aware about numerous discussions of this on Blizzard forums, Reddit and many more gaming sites and communities. Wanna hear what ppl think about it here on Nexus too.

 

So, LoTV is out al last, final chapter is done. There presumably will be some more mission packs released (like Nova ops announced) and huge, long MP balance polishing patches.

Thing that I can't wrap my head around no matter how hard I try is:

Why Blizzard created SO many different models, resurrected old units and tech from previous SC, added new ones, all-in-all created TONS of content, including outstanding cinematics, fully voiced characters in custom enviroments like ship interiers and etc? Was it only for arguably small, handheld and generic RTS campaign with cliche holliwood scenarios and glaring holes in the plot?

 

Yes, SC has quite deep and interesting lore (no matter there are many adoptions from different sci-fi universes), but game is RTS for cybersport and competition purely at its core. Bliz work HARD on balancing and polishing MP, too careful with unit and tech addition, not to even mention that there are still only 3 playable races.

 

I'm sure those who played campaign noticed great variety of units and their alternatives while playing it. Terran has quite a few units which gain unique ablilities and looks (model changing) and some units which aren't available in MP. Zerg has 3! different variants for many of their units along with ability to choose between 3 more specializations in between mission when some give them quite unique roles and properties. In LoTV we have 4!!! different factions of protoss which gives us 3 variants for most units, some new buildings and brand new orbital abilities, that all not mentioning actual hero-units presented in all 3 campaigns. MOST of this content is not available in MP.

 

Why Blizzard put so much effort and time in creating all this? For campaign which you finish in few evenings and forget as if it never happened? Players buying and appreciating this game for MP, which is basically perfect e-Sport, most of gameplay hours sink in there, not short generic campaigns. Locking all this stuff seems crazy. Knowing Blizzard and how carefull they go about MP balance, we surely can't hope they add something like choice of race specializations, like you can choose between Aiur, Shakuras or Purifier Protoss giving you different approach and changing your strategy. There are even some groundwork on forth race (presumably Hybrid), some more merging between 2 or 3 existing races could lead to interesting designs IMO.

 

There are opinions that Bliz won't touch sci-fi after they're done with SCII for long time, maybe forever. So, what do you think? All this work will go to waste? We'll never get actual MP revamp adding at least some of this content we have in campaign? Isn't that too sad?...

 

[obobski]

Full disclosure: I'm waiting on SC2 in the mail today, so I can't comment on specific gameplay (yet). I also haven't bothered much with MP gaming in years, so I have no idea what the current "state of the art" looks like. However, having said all that, I remember the original StarCraft (and WarCraft 3) fondly, and remember the campaign also having a number of unique scenarios and features that were not available in "generic" MP, but were fully available in custom UMS scenarios (and there were some pretty crazy UMS packages that were available back in the day) - perhaps its just the case that Blizzard is following suit there, and the resources are available and merely waiting for someone to use them?

[Signette]

That is possible, I know SCII has some modding community and they actually doing something, but I never downloaded any mods to see them for myself, but from far away observation it doesn't look like there are some incredibly outstanding high quality mods out there, maybe I just missing them, odd, since I remember tons and tons of user created content for WarCraft 3... Still, those assets we see in SCII campaign are very well done, and they would certainly fit MP if not for expanding racial specializations, but for some custom gamemodes.

[Sasston]

I've played and finished StarCraft II (all compains etc) but keep in mind I never really played 1.

I rather liked the fact that they actually put a heap of work into the campains and the storyline, I never really noticed any major plot holes but I'm not big on the starcraft lore so I might just be missing things, but I liked the hero charicters and the unique gameplay that isn't in MP. Plus now they have the add on of CO OP missions where you can level up commanders and play unique missions with friends or randoms as well as getting the feeling of progression like in the single player campains.

As for only haveing 3 races, compare the diffrence to those three compare to something like age of empires 2 (I know and old game), but most of those units and building where shared, say the one unique unit for each race. StarCraft on the other hand focuses on the diffrence between the races making each race have a diffrent feel and play style.

yea, like all games there is room for improvement but I think they did a dam good job tying everything up.

[DarthDeadMan]

 

 

Why Blizzard put so much effort and time in creating all this? For campaign which you finish in few evenings and forget as if it never happened? Players buying and appreciating this game for MP, which is basically perfect e-Sport, most of gameplay hours sink in there, not short generic campaigns.

They did it to please players like me, who don't care about MP and all this "e-sport" stuff, but want a solid SP campaign.

[Signette]

I've played and finished StarCraft II (all compains etc) but keep in mind I never really played 1.

I rather liked the fact that they actually put a heap of work into the campains and the storyline, I never really noticed any major plot holes but I'm not big on the starcraft lore so I might just be missing things, but I liked the hero charicters and the unique gameplay that isn't in MP. Plus now they have the add on of CO OP missions where you can level up commanders and play unique missions with friends or randoms as well as getting the feeling of progression like in the single player campains.

As for only haveing 3 races, compare the diffrence to those three compare to something like age of empires 2 (I know and old game), but most of those units and building where shared, say the one unique unit for each race. StarCraft on the other hand focuses on the diffrence between the races making each race have a diffrent feel and play style.

yea, like all games there is room for improvement but I think they did a dam good job tying everything up.

Having 3 races in game for 18! years is ridiculous... WarCraft started with 2 races and ended up with 4. Adding 4th race or at least divesify gameplay by adding specializations is rather logical way. MP is great but still feels ripped off when you see all those units and tech in campaign that could certainly be implemented in MP if Bliz wouldn't be so afraid of changes. Hell, Warhammer 40k DoW 1 had 9! races which were all different and gameplay was pretty balanced and fun.

 

 

 

Why Blizzard put so much effort and time in creating all this? For campaign which you finish in few evenings and forget as if it never happened? Players buying and appreciating this game for MP, which is basically perfect e-Sport, most of gameplay hours sink in there, not short generic campaigns.

They did it to please players like me, who don't care about MP and all this "e-sport" stuff, but want a solid SP campaign.

 

The problem is: they put insane efforts in creating campaign, but it's still very short and crumpled. You can beat all 3 campaigns like in 2 weeks if you play real slow, than what? Replay value is almost zero, you can finish them again in like a week (when you know what to expect and best tactics), than you have to go into MP.

 

With that much effort they could at least add some gamemode (like in Dune RTS) where you have to conquer territories to slowly progress and etc. Whole SP thing in SC2 really feels like a big waste, and that's too sad considering how many resources they put in creating it. They could certainly build something bigger on that basis.

Edited December 17, 2015 by Signette

[Sasston]

I spose you're right, but they can't just throw in another race now, if they make a SC3 then I would like to see another race, but I just think that it wouldn't make sence for them to add a new race on the third expantion.

[DarthDeadMan]

 

 

You can beat all 3 campaigns like in 2 weeks if you play real slow, than what?

It actually took me 3 weeks to finish WoL and 2 weeks for HotS. I don't have much time to play games these days :(

 

 

Replay value is almost zero?

This is true to 95% of single-player games which are not RPGs. You play them, you finish them, you forget about them.

Edited December 18, 2015 by DarthDeadMan

[Signette]

I spose you're right, but they can't just throw in another race now, if they make a SC3 then I would like to see another race, but I just think that it wouldn't make sence for them to add a new race on the third expantion.

Thing is, there's alot of talks about StarCraft 2 being last game in its series, and knowing Blizzard that seems like truth. SC2 now is polished and shaped very well for e-sport, Bliz have no plans (hallelujah!) for StarCraft MMO, so title is most likely dead for probably next 20 years or so...

 

 

 

You can beat all 3 campaigns like in 2 weeks if you play real slow, than what?

It actually took me 3 weeks to finish WoL and 2 weeks for HotS. I don't have much time to play games these days :sad:

 

 

Replay value is almost zero?

This is true to 95% of single-player games which are not RPGs. You play them, you finish them, you forget about them.

 

I finished each campaign as it was released, on normal it basically take you maximum week. When LoTV released I replayed all 3 on hard and it took me about 2 weeks. Playing every evening about 2-3 hours. Thing is, it would seem ok if SC2 had simple generic RTS campaign, but amount of resouces they put into it... Kinda seems like they worked on this much harder than actual MP, but end result is very saddening. They definitely could do more, and most frustrating about all this that after some mini-mission expansion releases all we can hope for are balance patches and game will be put to sleep for many more years ahead. So much potential...

[Sasston]

Thing is, there's a lot of talks about StarCraft 2 being last game in its series, and knowing Blizzard that seems like truth. SC2 now is polished and shaped very well for e-sport, Bliz have no plans (hallelujah!) for StarCraft MMO, so title is most likely dead for probably next 20 years or so...

 

That's true I've also heard about that, it makes sense as well, the campain finished and they it seems like this is the end, but lets just say that SC fans keep asking for more StarCraft, they might think about making a new one, and what better way to start a new storyline then with a new race. I'm just going off on a tangent but you never know. With Over Watch on the way I think it's safe to say that this is it for SC for a while.