Tuesday, June 30th 2009

New Star Craft 2 Details Emerge

A new list of features surraunding the upcoming RTS franchise Star Craft 2 that might interest you were announced today. Starting with the big one, Blizzard has confirmed that Star Craft 2 will not support LAN multiplayer mode. The game will be entirely online based, multiplayer connections will go through Battle.net only, no LAN connections will be allowed.
Blizzard today also posted a new 7 minute video footage of some ingame action. Units from all the three races are captured in the video, you can watch it in high quality here.
Also unveiled during an interview with Shacknews was that players will be able to hire NPC mercenaries and use them in the single player mode campaign. StarCraft II lead designer Dustin Browder also detailed that again in single player campaign mode, there'll be additional objectives and optional quests which if completed will give players different bonuses. You can read the full interview with Dustin Browder right here.
Sources: Shacknews, IncGamers
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51 Comments on New Star Craft 2 Details Emerge

#26
Disparia
Of course there will be LAN play... the outrage will force them to include it :)
Posted on Reply
#27
1Kurgan1
The Knife in your Back
I don't see the issue with no LAN, this stops piracy. If there wasn't piracy there wouldn't be companys looking for ways to keep their games profitable for the amount of work they have into it, cause and effect, pretty simple. Battle.net will be free, always has been, probably always will be, so I'm not seeing the issue here.

Either way, looks interesting, I never got into the 1st, maybe will try this one out.
Posted on Reply
#28
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
1Kurgan1I don't see the issue with no LAN, this stops piracy. If there wasn't piracy there wouldn't be companys looking for ways to keep their games profitable for the amount of work they have into it, cause and effect, pretty simple. Battle.net will be free, always has been, probably always will be, so I'm not seeing the issue here.

Either way, looks interesting, I never got into the 1st, maybe will try this one out.
i take it you've never had to live without cable internet, or lived with another gamer?
Posted on Reply
#29
1Kurgan1
The Knife in your Back
Musselsi take it you've never had to live without cable internet, or lived with another gamer?
My family got it's 1st comp in 2002, a 1ghz celeron with 128mb ram, 20gb hdd, and 4mb built in video. We had aolhell over 56k, but we were so far in the country it was more like a 14k connection. I didn't get my own decent gaming comp till 04, but I still had no decent net and would haul my tower and monitor over to numerous friends houses to play games, my comp ended up being at one friends house for almost a year. I finally got cable in the middle of 06, then had to go back to my parents and convince them to get dsl, and now back to cable.

So yeah, I didn't really have high speed net until less than 3 years ago. Dealt with it for a longtime, it's an annoyance, but high speed internet is a much larger market now, heck my parents live in the middle of no where and got DSL. It sucks that there will be no LAN, but it's obvious why, and with the availibility of high speed net today I don't see it being as big of an issue it was in the past.

Even if it is, it shouldn't be for anyone on this site, I see a ton of people "OMG NNNOOOO" I would assume at least 95% of people here have high speed, these are the people I wouldn't expect to be hearing this from.

Also my GF is a gamer, and my comp was over at my friends house for a year, there was 7 other comps there in use, I could walk in at any time of the day (even 3 - 5am) and there would at least be 2 or more people up gaming, so yep been in a place like that too.
Posted on Reply
#31
BazookaJoe
I hate this game already - and I was a HUGE Starcraft and Brood War fan.

It's like Blizzard simply do not give a hoot in hell about customers anymore.

Whilst some aspects of them staying true to the original are good, they havent done enough to evolve the title.

To start with you STILL seem to play the entire game with your face duct-taped to the screen with NO ability to zoom out and manage the bigger picture what so ever - But maybe that is because there IS NO BIGGER PICTURE ANYMORE....

It seems the the entire spirit of the GAME has been lost for good, the whole objective now is to beat your opponent as fast as possible , quit the server and run away and hide under your bed.

The shorter a game lasts the better you are?? W - T - F ?!?!?!?!?!?

I remember when myself and friends used to play HUGE maps for HOURS AND HOURS on .... wait for it ... SERIAL RS232 CABLES, never mind LAN.

Half the POINT of the game was that you could finally get your friends & their pc's over and have some great fun, hell, games like these INVENTED THE VERY CONCEPT OF A LAN PARTY.

Long, strategic, huge battles with hundreds of units that could wage on for hours.

Battle report 1 - "Here we have the player on a HUGE map.." - I SWEAR at one point right in the beginning of the game the terran dude sneezed in his base and the protos dudes HEARD him - that map was smaller than my KITCHEN?!?!

Heck, they should have just called Warcraft 3 "Minor Skirmish Craft", what with all this stupid Hero Nursing & PENALTIES for having an army?? (Upkeep?!?!?!?!!?)

Now Starcraft as well??? So much Potential thrown away for no good reason at all.

EDIT : I do however have to admit that MAYBE the fault is in fact mine for ever holding hopes & expectations for Starcraft2 to begin with.. "The Old NEW Blizzard just AIN'T what she used to be, ain't what she used to be, a'int what she used to be..."

Posted on Reply
#32
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
1Kurgan1with the availibility of high speed net today I don't see it being as big of an issue it was in the past.
In YOUR country. Not in mine. the average internet here (and the overwhelming majority) is a 256Kb or 512Kb connection (with 64/128k upload). "high speed" here is 1.5Mb down, 256k up in most areas.
1Kurgan1Even if it is, it shouldn't be for anyone on this site, I see a ton of people "OMG NNNOOOO" I would assume at least 95% of people here have high speed, these are the people I wouldn't expect to be hearing this from.
We're talking about the sequel to a game which pretty much started LAN play RTS. the freaking games a sport in korea, they even have TV channels relating to it.

if you've ever shared an internet connection with more than one PC on it, you'd be aware that its very very easy for one PC to max out the line and make the net unusable for anyone else, for gaming purposes. try it when you have several housemates, friends who want in on it, and a monthly download limit.
1Kurgan1Also my GF is a gamer, and my comp was over at my friends house for a year, there was 7 other comps there in use, I could walk in at any time of the day (even 3 - 5am) and there would at least be 2 or more people up gaming, so yep been in a place like that too.
i bet they had one he

I had a response here. then my PC bluescreened. (testing new ram) in the time it took for my PC to reboot and firefox to load my page again, i had forgotten it. i think it was something to do with the likelihood of them having awesome internet.


I have a very simple thing to say on how this will reduce piracy:
It god damned wont

People who would have pirated this game, never intended to buy it. Sales recovered: 0

People who would have bought it, but now wont with the lack of LAN play: every lanner in the world without hardcore internet. most of korea.
Sales lost: half the starcraft userbase, if not more.
Posted on Reply
#33
kid41212003
I played Starcraft on 56k before, and it wasn't laggy.
And there will be servers across the world.

This will reduce piracy in EU, and US, you want multi-players? Get a real key, because $40 or $50 isn't alot for US or EU citizen.

Beside, why people still playing Stacraft even though it's already released 10 years ago? Because it's an addicted multiplayers game, and SC2 will be the same.

I have no reason to be angry over this, LAN or not, doesn't matter.
Real SC pros aren't my neighboors but people all over the world.
Posted on Reply
#34
1Kurgan1
The Knife in your Back
MusselsIn YOUR country. Not in mine. the average internet here (and the overwhelming majority) is a 256Kb or 512Kb connection (with 64/128k upload). "high speed" here is 1.5Mb down, 256k up in most areas.
Yeah, our net speed here blows, but still it's plenty enough to play games with a good connection, I have basic cable and it's plenty enough.
MusselsWe're talking about the sequel to a game which pretty much started LAN play RTS. the freaking games a sport in korea, they even have TV channels relating to it.

if you've ever shared an internet connection with more than one PC on it, you'd be aware that its very very easy for one PC to max out the line and make the net unusable for anyone else, for gaming purposes. try it when you have several housemates, friends who want in on it, and a monthly download limit.
Yep the game is massive in Korea, but here's the thing, you're trying to "have your cake and eat it too". If you expect to DL and play games with multiple people on a single line, you are going to have issues. And can't really complain about that, I never DL when I game, no matter how little bandwidth it does you, it still holds some and drops latency. Like I said 7 comps, and we could all be on at once and have no issues, if someone fired up torrents they were found in minutes of turning them on and most likely murdered though.
MusselsI have a very simple thing to say on how this will reduce piracy:
It god damned wont

People who would have pirated this game, never intended to buy it. Sales recovered: 0

People who would have bought it, but now wont with the lack of LAN play: every lanner in the world without hardcore internet. most of korea.
Sales lost: half the starcraft userbase, if not more.
That seems like a large over reaction, half sales gone? And "hardcore" internet being a requirement to game. I am sure they could careless about pirates, if they were goign to DL and not buy them game, then I doubt they care weather these people are playing or not, because either they are going to be playing for free on Blizzards dime (of making the game) or not playing at all, and if I was blizzard the later of the 2 would make me the happiest.

This game is goign to sell huge, despite people not seeing LAN on there, it has a huge following, and not only does just SC have a huge following, so does Diablo and WoW. And WoW was not out until years after SC, all those people who started playing WoW could be lookign to play this too since they are happy with their current Blizzard product. I just don't see this as a huge deal, this thread almost makes it sound like the end of the world. :laugh:
kid41212003I have no reason to be angry over this, LAN or not, doesn't matter.
Real SC pros aren't my neighboors but people all over the world.
Exactly
Posted on Reply
#35
CrAsHnBuRnXp
Ive never played SC online anyway. SC is a game that I could never play without cheats. I still cant play it without cheats. So I dont really mind this. Thats just me though.
Posted on Reply
#36
a_ump
haha crash. yea when i first started playing sc i had to cheat. the main thing that i go by is if i'm not clicking or doing something in an RTS then i'm not playing the best i can as there's almost always something to do. Main thing i noticed in SC against the comps is just getting past their first wave of 12 hydras/zeolots/marines. Then your usually set.

As for the lan thing, there will be a way around that. I'm no expert at cracking or modifying games for that type of stuff but i'm sure there is a way around it. No LAN is extremely gay though. When i go to ohio my brother and i like to lan SC as my aunt we stay with during visits doesn't have a router, guess we'll be sticking to SC instead of SC2.

Now explain to me how this is supposed to keep people from pirating it, i personally love the gameplay but i also like the campaign as i find it to be the only RTS i've played that has a good storyline going. I'm plenty sure that the people that planned to pirate this still will simply to play the campaign, and those that were going to buy it for lan play as well, may now just pirate it instead since only the campaign will be available for them. Personally i agree with Mussels that removing LAN gaming from SC2 won't keep players from pirating the game.....in fact its one of the worst attempts i've heard of to stop piracy. "No lan, there that'll keep the players that want to play the game from pirating it...even though this only keeps pirated versions from being playable online with a perfectly fine campaign for them to enjoy for free."

literally pointless
Posted on Reply
#37
simlariver
No LAN ??

Are we supposed to play tournaments next to the servers ?? :banghead:

BLizzars has got one step closer to apple :shadedshu
Posted on Reply
#38
JC316
Knows what makes you tick
Man, they are really fucking the gamer over on this one. First, you will have to buy 3 separate games to get the full game and now no LAN? I am just waiting for them to announce that it will require steam to play.
Posted on Reply
#39
Polarman
I'll put my money on SupCom2. Blizzard is getting lazy and greedy.

Looks like Supreme Commander 2 will end up being better than Star Craft 2.
Posted on Reply
#41
a_ump
JC316Man, they are really fucking the gamer over on this one. First, you will have to buy 3 separate games to get the full game and now no LAN? I am just waiting for them to announce that it will require steam to play.
:roll: that one made me laugh, and nah i don't think gameplay wise SupCom2 will be better. Though it's matter of opinion, everyone is anticipating SC2 and have been, i mean i didn't even know SupCom2 was coming out yet i've been waiting for SC2 since my 7th grade year(sr this upcomin school year). I do agree that having to buy the game 3 different times to get the campaigns is horseshit, but i hope that it's because the campaign is going to be very long for each race compared to the 10 or so missions per race in the origional.
Posted on Reply
#42
pr0n Inspector
so it's got hype. big fucking deal. An RTS with no lan is just fucking absurd.
Posted on Reply
#44
Luke
Well i run LAN party's and i will tell you now no one that attends my LAN will ever touch a game that has no LAN mode end of story.
Posted on Reply
#45
Frick
Fishfaced Nincompoop
BazookaJoerandom hate
The game isn't released, and well.. Chill out until you've actually played it.

I for one don't really care for multiplay at all, so I'm happy as long as the campaigns are good. And as it's like 30 missions in each campaign, I don't mind bying the "same game" 3 times. If the campaigns are varied enough it'll be like playing 90 missions of Starcraft = AWESOMENESS OVERLOAD! :D
Posted on Reply
#46
Binge
Overclocking Surrealism
Before you guys get serious about starcraft I think you should all give this a little though. Wouldn't YOU like to be trained by a genuine Korean???

Get Trained in Starcraft TODAY
Posted on Reply
#47
Bjorn_Of_Iceland
kid41212003I played Starcraft on 56k before, and it wasn't laggy.
And there will be servers across the world...
umm.. it has lesser numbers to send. Unit specs and other data is miniscule compared to this (heck even minuscule compared to wc3) Its on 2d.. basically just x and y coordinates.
Posted on Reply
#48
Mussels
Freshwater Moderator
games like this use more and more bandwidth than ever before. you've got unit pathfinding (no change there) but now you also have units that can face any direction in a 360 degree world, including vertical height. Then you have physics (explosion, fire, smoke) which all have to be synchronised.

There is more and more data than ever before in RTS games, when it comes to network traffic.
Posted on Reply
#49
Dippyskoodlez
kid41212003The screenshot with the big robot is an April fool joke.
I'm suprised noone else pointed this out... :roll:

Relying on a "server" of any sort for local multiplayer is bad.

Because Blizzard can't maintain authentication servers worth a damn.
Posted on Reply
#50
kid41212003
Hi, my name is ByunTae from South Korea. I have been playing Starcraft since 1998 and I was born and raised in Korea. I'm 100% full blooded Korean, meaning I have been gifted with unparallel talent to master any video game, particularly, Starcraft: Brood War.
:laugh:
Posted on Reply
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